Identifying Critical Issues in Designing Educational Tourism Programs for Sustainable Development - Lessons Learnt from the Case Study of ITH Salzburg

Education is seen as an important way to contribute to development. The World Bank finances educational projects with large amounts of money every year because it is convinced that improving education can help alleviate poverty by raising incomes, improving health and nutrition and reducing family size (World Bank, 2011). On a different yet similar level, tourism has been conceptualized as a tool for development (Telfer & Sharpley, 2008; Mowforth & Munt, 2009). The tourism industry is said to be an export industry creating jobs and generating income. On the downside, the destinations may not benefit much from tourism with a huge proportion of profit leakage and detrimental harm to the physical environment (Mathieson & Wall, 1982; Wall & Mathieson, 2006). In addition, almost all of the developing countries lack a skilled labor force, which leaves the skilled and better paid jobs to foreigners. Therefore, the sustainability idea has gained more and more momentum. One aspect of this idea is to enable the local population to indeed benefit from tourism by implementing educational programs for sustainable tourism development.