The Future of Tourism (edX)

What will happen if we can't use aeroplanes in the future because we need to travel more environmentally friendly? Where will we go? What will we do? How will this impact the (perceived) wellbeing of those who believe they have a right to travel?

As a tourism professional , you face a rapidly changing world with ever-increasing disruptions, including climate change, pandemics, and changing consumer preferences. These disruptions can significantly impact your tourism organization and/or destinations, making preparing for and adapting to future uncertainties crucial.

In this MOOC , you will learn how to think about the future and make decisions based on possible scenarios. You will also develop the skill of "Futuring" to help you be more prepared for whatever the future brings.

The course offers a tool for strategic futuring, which you can use in your daily life and organization. This will make you a more reflective individual and offer you confidence in making decisions.

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.

What you'll learn

- Familiarize yourself with diverse tourism futures, some more mainstream, some more radical

- Identify needs concerning more resilient/regenerative destinations

- Explore systemic tendencies to act upon threats and opportunities

- Reflect on personal/organizational tendencies to act towards uncertain tourism future(s)

- Apply the art of futuring to make well-informed and creative decisions for a future-proof travel

- Back-cast and identify steps that are required to get there

Syllabus

Module 1: Future Tourism Pathways

Introduction to the course and a preview of the course; how the course is organized and what to expect; Introducing methods, tools and assignments; Introducing the team and the opportunity to meet other learners.

Being Familiar with the pros and cons of diverse tourism future pathways and exploring alternative tourism pathways; introducing of course assignment: learners start identifying typical path dependencies in real-life cases.

Module 2: Status Quo of Tourism

Evolving and complex systemic tendencies to act upon threats and opportunities; Dominant ideas and discourses; A systematic analysis of the present; Learners must challenge taken-for-granted ideas/actions by incorporating events and knowledge beyond their known knowns.

Module 3: Transforming Tourism

Engagement with a plurality of perspectives and wider goal dependencies/ how to trigger a change; barriers and opportunities to change; learners reflexively unpack their envisioned actions in light of plural goals adopted towards a (seemingly) common tourism future. They will identify potential barriers in their pathway and how to bridge them.