The presence of history in South African tourism textbooks

Abstract

Tourism education is a fundamental component of the tourism industry that helps develop a skilled workforce capable of addressing the industry's complexities. The diverse career opportunities in the tourism industry are a direct result of interdisciplinary tourism education. This interdisciplinary relationship is shared between history, geography, business studies, economics and philosophy, but this research study aims to ascertain how history manifests in Tourism education. Tourism Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statements textbooks were analysed qualitatively using a five-dimensional model. The first dimension served to understand the historical genre and the genre volume manifested in the Tourism textbooks. The second dimension categorised historical content according to 11 common historical branches (political history, social history, economic history, religious history, diplomatic history, art history, food history, science and medicine history, cultural history, women’s history, and environmental history). The third dimension adopted Kukard’s purposes of history education to explore the relationship that history shares with tourism education. These purposes served to understand if history teaches a national story (memory history) if history develops a learner’s analytical thinking and skills (analytical history), and if history helps learners participate in society (critical history). The fourth dimension discloses which other subjects are amalgamated in the history content. The fifth dimension considers any other history that may emerge.

An academic and civic identity was designed and developed. The findings from these identities argue that history in Tourism differs radically from history in History education. Tourism history is a different form of history that serves to amplify travelling in a diverse cultural setting and beautify icons/attractions by promoting the picture-perfect site for travelling – it is mostly about memories as in memory history. Tourism educators understand the purpose of history in tourism education. The trends and findings from this study can improve teaching methodologies and help educators understand tourism textbooks from diverse perspectives. For textbook researchers, the findings open the door to similar explorations within other disciplines in Tourism textbooks within the interdisciplinary framework.