Third International Conference on Tourism & Leisure Studies

Abstract

In 1957 started the first programme for tourism education in Spain with the aim of providing professionals capable to develop that new activity. Tourism was considered as a whole, where different industries were related to each other in order to offer an experience to travelers, already named “tourists.” Sixty years later tourism has become one of the main industries in Spain but, has the education for tourism reached the same level of development? This work aims to study in Depth the evolution of tourism education in Spain and its current situation. With this purpose, an intensive literature review has been conducted and the different academic programmes have been analysed. Also, in-depth interviews have been held with people who played important roles in the evolution of the studies from the starting proposal in private specialized schools to the current university studies. The result is a snapshot of the current situation of the education for tourism in Spain, the first step to find out whether this education corresponds to the needs of the different tourism industries.