USE OF THE INTERNET FOR ENHANCING TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY HIGHER EDUCATION IN SOUTHERN AFRICA: IMPLICATIONS FOR E-LEARNING

摘要

In the developed world, offerings of electronic courses and degrees are growing rapidly. Some researchers believe that e-courses represent the future for higher education. Training of the tourism and hospitality labour force is a key component of Governments' (for example, South African) competitiveness policy and is reflected in initiatives to improve national productivity. In developing countries, the biggest challenge in establishing e-commerce is the lack of adequate telecommunication networks (Thapisa & Birabwa, 1998). The mission of tourism and hospitality management programmes is ultimately to prepare students for the work-place and to produce industry leaders who are motivated, service oriented and quickthinking, with a multi-skills base that allows them to be creative, flexible and adaptable (Sigala et al, 2002). Social, multicultural and communication skills acquisition is crucial. In particular, Sigala (2002a) stresses that e-learning helps learners to acclimatise to the technological changes that are taking place in the tourism environment, and allows them to experience multicultural diversity and teamwork by interacting with people of different social and cultural backgrounds via the Internet. This study determined the extent that tourism and hospitality educators in higher education in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region used the Internet as part of their instruction. The findings have implication for the calibre of learner that the tourism and hospitality industry ultimately employees. This study was exploratory in that no such studies seem to have been conducted in SADC. SADC is a regional body comprising of 14 member states which agree on areas and institutional mechanisms for such cooperation and integration. The parameters of the sampling frame were the e-mail contact details of the members of the Tourism Educators of South Africa (TESA), the contact details of other educators complied through systematic Internet searches, and telephonic enquiries where the web sites of institutions provided inadequate information. Questionnaires involving 51 tourism and hospitality higher-educationists were included in the study through non-probability purposive sampling. Results showed that majority of educators appreciated the value that the Internet represented, but used it largely as a basic information search aid. Few used the Internet as a tool for instruction to transform the learning process. It is important to create conditions that favour e-learning and to eliminate barriers that prevent learners from participating in e-learning (Collins et al, 2003). This is very relevant for the SADC region which is plagued by: HIV/AIDS (and therefore; single parent, or no parent families); poor infrastructure; and general poverty, not to mention the huge disparity that exists between South Africa and the other SADC members-states in the provision of e-learning and the potential domination of this area by South Africa. The findings seem to suggest that the SADC educators lack a strategic sense of how to implement elearning in tourism and hospitality higher education. Educators treated the Internet as a simple information-searching medium, with little sharing or making information available to learners; or, communicating with their learners. A noticeable proportion of SADC educators however, are increasing.