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Wageningen University

Sustainable Tourism: Rethinking the future

Wageningen University via edX

Overview

Sustainable tourism development put into practice
In this course you will be teamed up and challenged to apply your argumentation skills to implement insights from various tourism disciplines and different social science perspectives to current tourism developments. For example:

Sociology: how is tourism organised (laws/regulations)?
Psychology: what effects how tourists experience tourism (COVID 19?!)
Geography: what does tourism development mean for a particular location?

Learn of and work on promising and new tourism developments, such as Van Life and voluntourism and other inspiring changes observed in the tourism industry. Recognize and co-create future narratives as a tool to compose new business cases and/or project proposals in your professional context. Implement these perspectives to a tourism practice of your choice, and share your insights through regular feedback with experts and other participants in this course.

Debates on sustainable tourism development
Sustainable alternatives can only become real if we allow for an open space for continuous discussion and representation of new ideas. That's why this MOOC offers a platform for ongoing discussions of tourism developments, where you are encouraged to engage in meaningful debates on these innovative developments as they appear, during the course as well as after completion.

The effects of Corona virus on the tourism industry
There is no doubt that tourism has been greatly affected by the Corona pandemic. With the upcoming attempt to rebound post-Corona, the industry faces a choice: back to business-as-usual or re-invention toward more sustainable practices, such as ecotourism? But also, how has Corona effected tourists? We will discuss all related questions throughout our tourism courses.

For whom
Whether you work in tourism, are a tourism related business owner or a fervent traveller, join us for this MOOC as we apply science to a broad array types of tourism. Then come up with your very own to help drive sustainability in tourism. Subscribe now!

Professional Certificate Programme

This online course is part of the Professional Certificate Programme Tourism in Transition: Exploring a Sustainable Future, along with the MOOCs: Sustainable Tourism: Society & Environmental Aspects and Tourism and Climate Change.

Syllabus

Module 1: Tourism Studies and Development

In module 1, you will learn more about the cases from which we will depart in this course. Each case represents a unique setting in which tourism develops one way or another. As situational these cases appear, they may well connect with other practices that you are familiar with or have a special interest in. It is also possible to come up with your own case and find collaborators (other learners) who wish to join you in the exploration of this case. We very much welcome your creativity in outlining a case that is of interest to you!

If you are eager to move forward and engage in a dialogue on these cases, you must enrol as a verified learner. As a verified learner, you are given access to your own team environment but also to previous ideas developed in this course. You can work with other international team members on a case of your choice, share inspiring solutions to problems addressed, participate in (optional) fieldwork and engage in analyses corresponding to modules 2-4.

Module 2: Psychology of Tourism

In module 2, you will get an overview of the psychology of tourism and explain tourist experiences before, during and after holiday trips.

Module 3: Sociology of Tourism

In module 3, you will get an overview of the sociology of tourism, and learn how to explore the policy environment of any tourism case.

Module 4: Geography of Tourism

In module 4, you will get an overview of the geography of tourism, and learn how to explore the politics of place making and objects in tourism contexts.

Wrapping Up and Looking Forward

In module 5, we will invite you and your team members to present your group findings to all learners of this course. As such, you can possibly become inspired with the work of other learners in this course and gain final feedback to improve your final team vision.

Finally, verified learners can complete this course by filing a personal report in which you reflect on the team process and outcomes individually.

Taught by

Arjaan Pellis and Jonas Skutka

Reviews

4.0 rating, based on 67 Class Central reviews

Start your review of Sustainable Tourism: Rethinking the future

  • Anonymous
    Tourism is my passion and I want to work in improving the long term sustainability of the sector in my professional career. The topics covered in this course were therefore of natural interest to me and in some cases helped me gain interesting insig…
  • Anonymous
    The content is really interesting but please please please make the team assignment more centralized instead of spread out over 20 pages and take a more active role in the team formation. Right now the team work was extremely hard to get going.
  • Anonymous
    The course is built up well and the inputs are interesting. It is more challenging than the first part of the "sustainable tourism" module and I feel like I really learned something. Sometimes a bit repetetive. One big con I have to word however, i…
  • Anonymous
    I like to content of the course, but I think there needs to be some improvement done. All the different documents can be arranged in a better way to make it easier for us to follow along. There should also be some form of (or better) communication w…
  • Anonymous
    I really enjoyed joining this course because not only i can get the knowledge and better understanding on how to initiate and solving problem in sustainability tourism but also I gain more experiences by working together with other students from around the world with different background, state of mind, and location. Hopefully i can applied this knowledge in my daily job and for my own country.
  • Anonymous
    The content of the lectures was interesting, however, it did not reflect on what you would expect from the title. This course gives a general overview of research practices in tourism, it does not give actual insights about sustainable tourism or fu…
  • Anonymous
    This course is very well done and organized. The teachers are well prepared and chose good examples. I was inspired by this course and I will continue in this subject.
  • Anonymous
    I really liked the possibility of taking a self-placed course, it's a way of approaching a new subject without feeling the weight and commitment of a normal face-to-face course. It's more difficult to self-manage one's own time but this is another challenge that I faced with the desire to improve my skills in this sense too. Group work at a distance is difficult to manage and this is perhaps the part of the course that I liked least. Perhaps an online course should not be based so much on group work, but that's just my opinion.
  • Anonymous
    The topics and content of this course are very relevant and of high quality. I also believe that team assignments help with the further practical understanding of the theories presented in this course. However, the execution of the team assignment is rather difficult. If you start this course at a later stage it's hard to find fellow students to participate. Then you have to do all the assignments by yourself and this is very time consuming for one person. But your succeeding grade depends on these practical assignments.
  • Anonymous
    A good tourism course challenges us to group up with students worldwide and rethink the future of tourism by changing the market towards a more sustainable way. Working online has many challenges, but is also a good alternative to connecting other countries and due to covid 19. I would also have chosen this course if it was physical. It would have been exciting with more discussions and talking out loud about challenges and future solutions with other students interested in the same topic.
  • Anonymous
    In my profession as a consultant in the leisure industry, my work these days is very much related to destination management. Many problems that I work on are dealing with the balance between people, planet and profit regarding tourism. In this respe…
  • Anonymous
    The course in general is good, but it lacks flexibility, as the participant is obliged to work in a team to form the vision, and participation is supposed to be open and according to the desire of the participant, as he is the one who decides whether he wants the vision personally or through a team.
    Because there are circumstances that hinder the participant from joining a team.
    Especially since the subscriber has useful ideas and vision for the program.
  • Anonymous
    This course is very good because it helps learners to re-thinking some of the emerging tourism cases like Psychology, Sociology and Geography etc. The Psychology is foremost concerned with perceptions, motivations, feelings or emotions. Sociology of tourism also studies humans as social beings, how they live together in various societies. Tourism geography explores the interactions amongst tourists, visitors and inhabitants in and with places. In the nutshell, Learners also learn from each other's expertise and experiences.
  • Anonymous
    The course really excelled my expectations. The content was accurate and dynamic, always keeping in the interest of the student through various tools such as presentations, vlogs etc. The course was very well structured mounting up concepts slowly and gradually. It was never hectic in any of the activities that were there in the course. The features like discussion forums and other interactive things like the ungraded questions etc. The course also focuses on team building and group works which is a great way to learn new things. This gets even better when the members are from very wide section of the global society. In the end, I would like say that I very much liked the course.
  • Anonymous
    It was a great experience to learn about sustainable tourism on edx platform.

    Many thanks to the "professor" for taking out time and consolidating the fats & relevant data with best of the resources and possibilities for the learners.

    Great work! All the very best.
  • Anonymous
    I found the course very interesting and the build up through the course was well done. However, I found that during the course it was sometimes unclear what, as a verified learner, had to be delivered as a final product and where this had to be handed in.
  • Anonymous
    I found the course very interesting and the build up through the course was well done. However, I found that during the course it was sometimes unclear what, as a verified learner, had to be delivered as a final product and where this had to be handed in.
  • Anonymous
    The course instructors within the videos have a lot of positive energy. However, I believe we needed a better guide or coach in the teamwork section. The learning material and order of the course outline flowed. But as we what I stated in my review in for the first course in sustainable tourism, more resources and links to trends, current events or even job libraries should be given
  • Anonymous
    It was a fantastic course.

    I feel the main bulk of learning depended heavily on having a team, which was initially difficult to organise and slowed the course down immensely. However once the team got started it was very enriching!

    Some of the questions in the exam were written in a way I found it very difficult to understand the question, /or felt that multiple answers could be right. I think this could be improved by establishing a clearer context prior to the questions.

    All together I would strongly recommend this course and found it hugely beneficial to my learning.
  • Anonymous
    In a very nutritious course that you can get a lot of benefit from, only it limits you to explore and investigate more because you don't get the complete plan.

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