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574 technology
The most significant of these are the lack of clear
career path for tourism educators, and the strong
conflict between the demand for a strong academic
training as well as practical experience. When
combined, they create powerful forces that impact
heavily upon both current and future educators. In
addition, the need to develop a specialised disciplinary
expertise, while achieving a broad interdisciplinary
understanding of tourism, must be
addressed by the committed educator. These, along
with pressure to gain international experience while
at the same time demonstrating a strong local
commitment, creates strong pressures on the
instructor/scholar. Such pressures, added to a lack
of well-developed supporting teaching materials,
results in a strong challenge for administrators who
seek to support the educational goals and efforts of
future faculty members.
Despite the complexity of the problem, a number
of policy guidelines for tourism education administrators
have been identified. These include the
need to provide well-defined leadership and
organisational responsibilities for teacher/educator
training programmes. Such leadership is essential to
ensure that other components of the system realise
the importance and seriousness of tourism education.
Another critical principle underlying efforts to
prepare future educators is the need to ensure that
their training is sensitive to the needs of the industry.
At the same time, it is essential to stress that
academic programming in tourism should not be
totally driven by industry. In addition to their
pragmatic responsibilities, the educators of tomorrow
must be prepared to provide intellectual and
conceptual leadership to a rapidly evolving industry.
technology
J.R. BRENT RITCHIE, CANADA
Technology, despite its fundamental and widespread
influence on individuals and societies, is
difficult to define precisely. A simple but popular
view of technology revolves around its physical
manifestations, machines and equipment, and it is
not difficult to appreciate why this is so when one
considers the myriad of impressive examples of that
manifestation �space shuttles, jet aircraft and
satellite communications systems, to name but a
few). Even mundane examples, such as lightbulbs
and telephones, have such a dominant influence on
the way we live that they readily support this
popular view.
However, technology can be defined as the
systematic knowledge and action applicable to any
recurrent activity, which introduces an awareness
of the human element in the design, choice and
application of those physical artefacts and in the
creation and direction of the organisations in which
they are used. Thus management systems are also
forms of technology. An all-encompassing definition
which introduces an element of changing
conditions is more useful, and therefore the
following is recommended: technology is a flexible
repertoire of skills, knowledge and methods for
attaining desired results and avoiding failures
under varying circumstances. Reference to such a
definition does not automatically result in the
utilisation of machines or equipment, but indicates
the need to consider relevant objectives and the
various ways those objectives might be achieved,
which may or may not involve the most modern
and impressive equipment on display at the trade
fair or advertised in the media.
Technology, particularly the machines and
equipment variety, has undoubtedly played a large
part in establishing the general conditions in
society leading to the creation of demand for
tourism. For example, consider the creation of
wealth through the application of technology to
manufacturing and the creation of more leisure
time, as working life becomes more efficient and
thus less time needs to be spent in the workplace.
Technology also provides the means to satisfy that
demand. For example, the provision of jet aircraft
can quickly, safely, comfortably and relatively
cheaply carry large volumes of people to previously
inaccessible places, where they can stay in hotels
built to the highest standards of comfort and
efficiency and equipped with every modern
amenity, including communication installations
which allow visual contact with business colleagues
thousands of miles away; plus restaurants offering
foods which are never out of season, cooked on low
energy stoves, with all processes and payments
being monitored, controlled and paid for through
sophisticated computer-based systems.