Positioning rural tourism as a site of informal, experiential education, this study examines how experiential learning and perceived mental health (PMH) shape rural tourists' post-visit performance in Portugal. The learning construct, with word-of-mouth (WoM), is embedded in an extended Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT2) framework, tested on 308 tourists. PMH mediated the WoM–performance link, and experiential learning emerged as the strongest driver of post-visit performance, revealing rural tourism as a learning-rich experience rather than mere leisure. The study informs tourism education, showing how rural experiences can shape curriculum design and the training of tourism professionals.
This paper explores the role of silence in tourism qualitative inquiry through a quasi-postqualitative lens. Drawing on three ethnographic encounters, the article reconsiders silence not as absence, failed data or lack of participation but as a productive and relational presence within the ethnographic exchange. Specifically, the paper focuses on silence as hesitation, evasion, and refusal, and on its role in disrupting the expected coherence in tourism knowledge production and representation. Overall, this work highlights the importance of silence in exposing the political and ethical boundaries of tourism knowledge and academic ethnographic texts.
This study examines gastronomy students' intentions to participate in cooking competitions using the theory of planned behaviour extended by academic achievement, and to examine its effect on their professional commitment. Data obtained from 645 students were analysed using structural equation modeling. The results indicate that attitudes toward cooking competitions and perceived behavioral control positively influenced students' intention to participate in cooking competitions, while subjective norms and academic achievement had no significant effect. However, it was found that subjective norms indirectly affect behavioral intentions through attitude, while academic achievement does so through perceived behavioral control.
Hospitality is a storied industry, yet narrative modes of inquiry remain underused in hospitality research. This article introduces autoethnography as a narrative-forward, autobiographically oriented, and ethnographically grounded way of researching and writing about social life. Through an evolving dialogue between a professor and his doctoral student, this paper clarifies the relationship among the self (auto), culture (ethno), and craft of doing and writing (graphy) that underpins the methodology. In doing so, the article responds to several persistent misconceptions and critiques, while positioning autoethnography as a meaningful and generative way of illuminating the textured, affective, and relational dimensions of hospitality.
The rapid advancement of generative artificial intelligence (GAI) is transforming education in almost every domain. However, limited research has explored the adoption of GAI models in the context of tourism education. To address this gap, this study examines the factors influencing tourism students' behavioral intention (BI) to use ChatGPT for learning. This research is grounded in TAM, which is expanded through the integration of perceived enjoyment and social influence to better address the factors influencing BI to use ChatGPT for learning. Using convenience sampling, data were collected from 457 students through a structured questionnaire, and PLS-SEM was used to test the proposed model. The study's findings asserted that all hypothesized relationships were found to be positive and significant except for the path between SI and PEU. Our results confirm that perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use remain significant predictors of AI adoption, supporting the validity of TAM in the AI context. The findings further demonstrated the significant roles of perceived enjoyment and social influence, which contribute to the extension of the model. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed, offering insights into how these factors can inform future research and guide the effective integration of AI-driven tools in educational settings.
Drawing on the Health Belief Model and labeling theory, we examined how mental health perceptions shape help-seeking intentions among Gen Z hospitality students. Using an explanatory sequential mixed-method design, we found that perceived severity and perceived benefits increase help-seeking intentions, while perceived stigma decreases help-seeking intentions. Perceived susceptibility shows no significant effect. Self-efficacy strengthened the effect of perceived severity on help-seeking intention but weakened the effect of perceived benefits. Social support buffered the effect of perceived severity on help-seeking intention. As one of the first studies on Gen Z hospitality students' mental health help-seeking, these findings highlight the need for stigma reduction and stronger institutional and workplace support.
Research shows that globally, women/girls academically outperform men/boys across educational levels. Yet despite high enrolments onto UK sports degree programmes, limited research has investigated staff views on this matter. This study explored academics' perceptions of gender-related attainment gaps within undergraduate sport programmes at a post-92 university. Of 45 survey respondents, only 16% perceived gaps, and most did not view gender bias as an issue. Qualitative comments suggested women students' self-regulation may contribute to gaps, as staff linked attainment to perceived differences in study behaviours. However, considerable staff uncertainty regarding gender-related attainment suggests awareness-raising as a first step in addressing disparities.
This study examines how experiential teaching methods influence people's intentions to eat plantbased alternatives. Drawing upon the health belief model, this study conducted a microlongitudinal between-group experiment with undergraduates who attended either a traditional lecture, a guided tasting session, or a hands-on cooking class. Experiential approaches outperformed a traditional lecture by significantly reducing perceived obstacles and enhancing perceived benefits. Participants' consumption intentions subsequently increased. However, perceived susceptibility and severity remained unchanged. Findings highlight the importance of experiential learning in overcoming obstacles to plant-based diets. The results also offer guidance for educators, policymakers, and other stakeholders seeking to promote plant-based alternatives.
The tourism sector, while transforming along the lines of digitalization, the experience economy, and sustainability, is creating complex, multi-stakeholder, and rapidly changing problem areas. This situation increases the need for learning environments where tourism students can address real-life problems by integrating information and communication technologies, and where they can develop higher-order thinking skills such as critical thinking, problem-solving, and creativity. This study developed and evaluated a design-based learning environment intended to develop the higher-order thinking skills of tourism students via information and communication technologies. The findings showed that a course environment designed using the design thinking approach and techniques was effective in the development of tourism students’ higher-order thinking skills, and indicated that digital technologies, leadership, teamwork, and feedback were important facilitators of this process. This research provides a road map for educators and decision-makers to develop and evaluate a learning environment using design thinking pedagogy based on the ADDIE model.
This study explores what students’ engagement with AI-infused learning reveals about readiness for competent and ethical participation in AI-mediated professional work in tourism and hospitality education. Using an exploratory qualitative design, one undergraduate cohort was followed across three pedagogical contexts over one semester. Findings suggest that readiness does not arise from AI familiarity or frequency of use alone. Instead, it became more visible in learning contexts that required evaluative judgement, responsibility, and attention to consequence. Project-based work, in particular, appeared to prompt students to interrogate AI outputs, justify decisions, and recognise the limits of AI in professional practice.
This study aims to investigate how interns' perceived green image of exhibitions influences their affective organizational commitment, thereby contributing to human resource sustainability. To examine the role of interns' perceived meaning of green exhibition internships, a four-dimensional scale is initially developed. Two rounds of survey data from 435 questionnaires are analyzed. Results show that only positive emotional meaning has a direct impact on interns’ affective organizational commitment. Positive emotional meaning and major educational meaning play a mediating role in the model. Green self-identity demonstrates moderating effects in two paths. The theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.
This study contributes to hospitality education scholarship by providing robust empirical evidence for a multidimensional experiential learning competency framework and clarifying how immersive pedagogies support both professional and civic outcomes. Across three studies using a repeated cross-sectional design, PLS-SEM results consistently demonstrate that experiential learning is best conceptualized as a set of interrelated competencies—practical skills, interpersonal communication, citizenship, and personal responsibility—rather than as a single global construct. This multidimensional perspective offers greater theoretical precision and explanatory power for understanding how immersive learning environments foster leadership self-efficacy and community contribution.
This audit provides an overview of UK Sports Therapy degree courses accredited by The Society of Sports Therapists, focusing on study routes, placement year opportunities, shared provision and curriculum content across levels of study. Course data were extracted from institutional websites and thematically coded. Only 48% of courses offer part-time study, and 41% include a placement year. Practical competencies-such as peripheral assessment, rehabilitation, vertebral mobilisations, and massage-appear in 89-100% of courses. However, business and entrepreneurship content only exist in 22%, and exclusively at level 6. Findings may influence institutions course design and marketing strategies; professional competencies; employers; and prospective students.
My Serious Life is a six-episode documentary that makes the Serious Leisure Perspective (SLP) accessible to non-academic audiences as an educational resource. Writing from my dual-role perspective, I present my reflections on documentary filmmaking as both an educational and knowledge-mobilization practice within leisure studies, and an innovative initiative within a context that typically values other types of scholarly outputs. I examine some of the challenges and lessons that emerged during the translation of the SLP for non-academic audiences. Here, the docuseries as a situated effort that illustrates the challenges, possibilities, and limitations of employing documentary media as a pedagogical resource in leisure education.
The purpose of this research is to explore the adoption of artificial intelligence use in culinary arts and gastronomy education among academics and students using the framework of the extended UTAUT model and to enhance and expand on the results yielded by this research using primary data and with the use of a mixed research methodology. The methodology adopted for this research is a mixed methodology where primary data is collected using both survey and interview methodologies.Quantitative analysis results showed that performance expectancy, hedonic motivation, and facilitating conditions have a significant and positive effect on the attitude towards the use of artificial intelligence in gastronomy and culinary arts education. Perceived risk and social influence variables were found to have no significant effect on attitude. Qualitative findings revealed that academicians position AI as a complementary tool supporting the teaching process and that pedagogical guidance and institutional support play a critical role in AI integration. Furthermore, it was emphasized that AI can support creative and practice-based learning processes, but ethical boundaries and applied skills must be preserved.
Using a SWOT framework and PRISMA-ScR standards, this study evaluates ChatGPT's role in sport and physical education across 20 peer-reviewed articles (2023-2025). Findings indicate that while ChatGPT enhances instructional efficiency and text-based cognitive learning, it lacks the capacity for movement-related feedback and real-time coaching. Opportunities include Artificial Intelligence literacy and technological integration, contrasted with threats such as safety risks, factual errors, and academic integrity. Ultimately, ChatGPT serves as a valuable supplement for theoretical tasks but remains limited in physical execution. Responsible implementation and further research into Artificial Intelligence-supported physical skill acquisition are essential.
Qualitative inquiry in hospitality and tourism is frequently misunderstood, undertaught, and constrained by formulaic expectations. This special issue calls for renewed engagement with qualitative research—one that embraces reflexivity, methodological diversity, creativity, and criticality. Unlearning Qualitative Inquiry reflects this vision in two ways. First, it responds to the need to correct the persistent misconceptions and misteachings that continue to circulate within our scholarly community. Second, it affirms that unlearning is a powerful form of learning in itself. Our call for papers in this new article collection is grounded by four core objectives: (1) to curate a compendium of resources for educators and scholars committed to conducting and advancing qualitative research in hospitality and tourism fields, (2) to correct prevailing misunderstandings of qualitative inquiry, (3) to create a platform for reflective, innovative, and ethical qualitative scholarship, and (4) to foster dialogue on critical qualitative methodologies. We invite contributions that illuminate the lived process of doing qualitative research, including its uncertainties, rigor, vulnerabilities, and potential for reimagining what inquiry in hospitality and tourism can be.
This study examines how tourism microcredentials articulate vocational and liberal educational orientations at the level of curriculum design. Drawing on Tribe's (2002) Philosophic Practitioner framework, it analyses intended learning outcomes from tourism microcredentials developed within a Slovenian higher education context using qualitative content analysis. As Slovenia represents an early adopter of European Union microcredentials policy, the case provides insight into how EU ambitions are translated into curriculum design. Findings reveal a strong vocational orientation alongside substantial evidence of critical reflection, suggesting that educational ambitions may depend on how microcredentials are positioned within intentionally designed stacked curricular pathways.
