Hospitality and tourism education increasingly emphasize experiential and applied learning. The rapid advancement of generative artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping not only how services are delivered but also how future hospitality professionals are educated. This pilot study examines the integration of a custom AI chatbot, NEX, within a single undergraduate hospitality management course. The study explored how generative AI can be responsibly embedded in experiential learning to build students' competence and confidence. Using a problem-based learning (PBL) approach, undergraduate students interacted with NEX during a four-week project to address open-ended, industry-relevant scenarios. NEX functioned as a reflective learning partner, prompting inquiry rather than providing direct answers. Preliminary thematic analysis of student responses and classroom observations indicated that combining PBL with AI support was perceived to foster deeper engagement and critical evaluation of AI-generated content, though students noted platform lag and a limited number of locally relevant responses. These findings point to future research exploring the scalability of AI-enhanced PBL across diverse educational settings.
Various approaches have been implemented to address food allergies and anaphylaxis in the events sector. Among these, technology-based solutions, notably mobile applications, have gained prominence. This case study, grounded in signaling theory, seeks to identify the types and mechanisms of food allergy applications and to understand how these applications can mitigate information asymmetry among stakeholders in event settings. The goal of this study is to contribute to establishing proactive and inclusive initiatives for future event management.
Entrepreneurial intention (EI) has been widely examined within the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB); however, limited attention has been paid to how everyday self-creativity operates and how the national context moderates these relationships. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between tourism students' perceptions of self-creativity and their entrepreneurial intention in higher education in T & uuml;rkiye and Kyrgyzstan. The antecedents of EI were analyzed using a mediation model, while country differences were tested through multi-group analysis. Data were collected from 285 tourism students and analyzed using PLS-SEM. The findings reveal that personal attitudes toward entrepreneurship and perceived behavioral control significantly predict entrepreneurial intention. Everyday interpersonal creativity has a positive and significant effect on EI. Everyday interpersonal creativity positively affects entrepreneurial intention among students in Kyrgyzstan, whereas everyday intrapersonal creativity is a significant predictor only for students in T & uuml;rkiye. These findings underscore the importance of incorporating cultural moderation into intention-based entrepreneurship models.
The rise of generative artificial intelligence (AI) presents a significant challenge for educators: how to effectively integrate AI into the classroom in a way that supports learning while preserving creativity, originality, and ethical responsibility. This Teaching Tips paper provides a practical framework for utilizing AI as a supportive tool in travel and tourism education, ensuring that students remain the primary authors of their work. Drawing on experiential and constructivist approaches, the paper presents an illustrative example of a six-part tourism marketing campaign assignment that guides students in using AI for content development while fostering critical reflection, creative ownership, and peer engagement. Teaching strategies are provided to support the ethical use of AI, metacognitive reflection, and responsible innovation. Optional supplementary materials are provided online to support flexible adaptation. This contribution helps educators prepare students for roles in the AI-influenced tourism industry.
The application of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI) is rapidly transforming the education system by enhancing the learning experience, designing curricula, streamlining academic & administrative tasks, and creating better learning content. The study adopts a qualitative exploratory research design and interview method to analyze the responses of teachers and students in tourism higher education to critically explore the impact of GAI. The study explores the major trends, perceived benefits, and challenges for the teachers as well as for the students associated with the use of GAI. The paper offers useful information on the impact of GAI on higher education, specifically tourism and hospitality education. The study contributes to a more profound understanding of the potential of GAI in shaping the future of education, helping educators, students, academic institutions, and the industry.
Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) has transformed tourism and hospitality education, creating opportunities for enhanced learning alongside concerns regarding cognitive offloading and unvalidated outputs. This research note proposes a three-stage Personal Knowledge System (PKS) for tourism and hospitality education that integrates students' note-taking practices with digital platforms and the responsible use of GenAI tools. Drawing on Niklas Luhmann's Zettelkasten method, the system progresses from fleeting notes captured during experiential learning, such as field trips, industry talks, and observations, through to permanent, interlinked digital notes supported by academic literature and referencing tools, and finally to AI-assisted synthesis and problem-solving. The PKS is particularly suited to tourism and hospitality education, where learning is experiential, situational, and industry-facing. By anchoring GenAI use within a body of notes that students have created and verified, the PKS preserves human agency and critical thinking, reduces reliance on unverifiable AI-generated content, and builds a foundation for lifelong learning.
Virtual avatars powered by generative AI hold transformative potential for hospitality education, enabling immersive simulations of service encounters, cross-cultural interactions, and entrepreneurial challenges. However, adoption is hindered by several critical barriers: limited faculty confidence, inequitable access to platforms, and inadequate cultural representation. This Teaching Tips article integrates the Technology Acceptance Model, Social Presence Theory, and Universal Design for Learning to present actionable implementation strategies. Drawing on a 2025 faculty roundtable at the International Council on Hotel, Restaurant, and Institutional Education conference, the authors highlight three obstacles: resistance to AI integration, subscription costs that create two-tiered access to avatar quality, and design limitations that reinforce narrow cultural stereotypes. The authors provide comprehensive guidelines for avatar design, platform selection, and pedagogical integration across hospitality modules. Practical recommendations include mitigating algorithmic bias, promoting digital equity through the use of captions and alternative formats, and aligning avatar-based instruction with learning outcomes. Three detailed tables map AI tools to course modules and production stages, equipping faculty with clear adoption pathways. By centering institutional support, professional development, and culturally responsive design, this article positions avatars as credible and inclusive pedagogical tools that prepare students for leadership in the global hospitality industry.
This study addresses the scarcity of personalized, culturally relevant English for Tourism (EFT) materials for niche tourism sectors. It evaluates the pedagogical effectiveness of AI-generated EFT materials, explores how generative AI mitigates linguistic and cultural challenges in these sectors, and proposes guidelines for ethical AI use in tourism education. Using a sequential explanatory design, 142 undergraduate tourism students were assigned to an experimental group using 40 ChatGPT-4o-generated units with AI-supported oral feedback and a control group following a conventional EFT textbook. Materials were developed through a human-in-the-loop (HITL) approach to ensure accuracy. Quantitative results showed significant improvements in English proficiency and intercultural competence in the experimental group. Qualitative data from focus groups and observations highlighted increased learner engagement, the role of instructor mediation, and the materials' effectiveness in bridging communication gaps. These findings demonstrate that responsibly integrated AI, combined with skilled human facilitation, can enhance tourism language education.
While severe labor shortages impact the hospitality and tourism (H&T) industries, they also create opportunities for people with disabilities (PWDs) aspiring to enter these sectors. Findings from 264 tourism practitioners suggest that, while the industry is generally open to people with physical disabilities (PWPDs), actual employment depends on their professional knowledge and job competencies. The results of the present study suggest several teaching strategies that can assist college students with physical disabilities in acquiring the skills and competence needed to meet industry expectations. These strategies include reviewing the curriculum to ensure adequate disability-related content is available; arranging paid internships and job shadowing opportunities; integrating blended learning methods, such as virtual subject-specific training and in-class management simulations; and inviting successful professionals with disabilities to share their career development stories. Such preparation not only enhances the employability of students with physical disabilities but also fosters further inclusive workforce development.
Tourism education matters not only because it prepares graduates for employment, but because it plays a formative role in shaping the values, assumptions, and decision-making frameworks that influence how tourism systems are understood, governed, and transformed. Tourism education is critical for cultivating systems thinking, ethical awareness, and sensitivity to social and spatial justice. This paper critiques the dominance of employability-driven motives within tourism education and suggests its reframing as a subject that focuses on purpose, ethics, and social and spatial justice. By situating tourism education as a critical space for systems thinking, ethical reflection, and engagement with power and inequality, the paper contributes to ongoing debates about the societal role of tourism education and its capacity to support sustainable and equitable tourism futures. The paper highlights the implications for tourism educators, curriculum design, and future research, calling for greater attention to justice-oriented dimensions within tourism education.
This case examines Alaska Airlines' transition from informal empowerment practices to a structured empowerment model grounded in Kanter's framework. Through its Service Framework - Safety, Care, Delivery, and Presentation - Alaska Airlines sought to balance frontline autonomy with alignment to company standards, supported by training, incentives, and digital tools. Comparative insights from Southwest Airlines' cultural model and American Airlines' support-based approach illustrate alternative empowerment strategies. The case invites students to analyze the strengths and limitations of structured empowerment, evaluate the balance between autonomy and consistency, and consider how empowerment lessons from airlines can transfer to other service industries.
As hospitality education adapts to an evolving industry and the rising influence of artificial intelligence (AI), there is a pressing need to design learning experiences that prioritize real-world relevance and academic integrity. This paper presents a case study of an innovative collaboration between Abu Dhabi Hospitality Academy, Les Roches, and Ferrari World Abu Dhabi, showcasing how authentic learning was operationalized. Students conducted observational studies at Ferrari World, analyzed TripAdvisor reviews, and presented strategic guest experience recommendations to senior executives in a boardroom setting. Framed by the Extended Authentic Learning Framework, this initiative fostered knowledge co-creation, critical reflection, and industry readiness. The findings reveal that authentic learning enhances student engagement and professional skill development and serves as a pedagogical countermeasure to the misuse of generative AI in academic assessments. The case study concludes by offering practical recommendations for educators seeking to embed authenticity into hospitality curricula and calls for expanded industry-academic partnerships to future-proof hospitality education.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping higher education and career services, raising critical questions for hospitality students, educators, and industry. This paper examines the role and ethics of AI in hospitality career development. The literature identifies three key areas: the transition from traditional relational career counseling models to AI-enabled efficiency; the use of AI as a pedagogical tool; and ethical challenges concerning authenticity, bias, transparency, privacy, and overreliance. While AI enhances scalability, personalization, and access, it also risks homogenizing applications and undermining fairness in recruitment. The discussion argues for hybrid models in which AI delivers efficiency and data-driven insights while human career educators safeguard reflective practice, authenticity, and ethical judgment. Practical implications are outlined for universities to embed ethical AI literacy, for students to balance technological fluency with interpersonal competence, and for employers to complement AI screening with human oversight. Future research should examine longitudinal career outcomes, cultural fairness in recruitment algorithms, and governance frameworks for the responsible adoption of these algorithms. The paper concludes that AI should act as a complement rather than a replacement, ensuring that hospitality career services remain aligned with the sector's people-centered ethos.
This study explores students' experiences of using artificial intelligence (AI) as a creative tool in event concept development. The research is based on an assignment completed by student groups during the final year of a British event management degree at a private international university in Vietnam. Through focus groups, the paper examines how AI supports ideation, collaboration, and the overcoming of creative blocks, while also highlighting student concerns about originality, cultural relevance, and overreliance. Findings reveal that students value AI for inspiration and efficiency but remain skeptical of its ability to generate truly innovative, emotionally engaging, or culturally nuanced ideas. The study underscores the importance of critical AI literacy, cultural adaptation, and ethical reflection in event management education. Educators seeking to integrate AI into creative curricula therefore need to ensure that human creativity and contextual understanding remain central.
This paper employs actor - network theory to examine hospitality management education in Business Schools, using Scotland as a case study. It pursues two objectives: first, to explore how hospitality discipline and knowledge are produced within this context; and second, to analyze its knowledge network in relation to disciplinary boundaries, stakeholder expectations, and institutional demands. Drawing on Latour principle of following the actor, hospitality discipline and knowledge are conceptualized as relational and continuously negotiated through relationship among diverse human and non-human actors with competing interests. Findings drawn from thirteen semi-structured interviews across four Scottish universities show that hospitality discipline and knowledge are increasingly shaped by institutional imperatives such as performance metrics, quality assurance frameworks, and employability agendas often at the expense of disciplinary distinctiveness. Hospitality academics respond by adapting curricula and pedagogical practices to sustain vocational relevance, thereby revealing the intellectual, organizational and social dynamics of hospitality disciplinary identity formation.
This study describes how Zoom-based negotiation role-plays in a fully online graduate course were used to develop skills transferable to hospitality and tourism practice. Grounded in social constructivism and active learning, the design combines structured pre-negotiation planning, synchronous Zoom negotiations, and guided post-negotiation reflection. One hundred and five online MBA students completed two multi-issue role-plays, including an adaptation of the Coffee Contract exercise framed as a long-term supply relationship between a hospitality operation and a specialty coffee vendor. Quantitative data on role-play performance and final course grades were complemented with measures of perceived learning and students' open-ended comments. Results show that stronger role-play performance is associated with higher learning achievement and perceived learning. Students highlighted realistic practice, improved communication and negotiation techniques, scaffolding, and enhanced critical thinking, while also noting challenges with scheduling, preparation, peer dynamics, and technology.
While Generative AI is reshaping higher education, its role in tourism-focused Virtual Exchange remains underexplored. This study examines the impact of AI on student interaction, academic performance, and engagement in a pilot Virtual Exchange between universities in Spain and Ireland. Drawing on Conversation Theory, Virtual Exchange is conceptualized as a triadic process involving students and AI, moving from interaction to shared understanding and collaborative action. Using a mixed-methods approach with qualitative emphasis, the study explores how AI tools shaped the learning experience, highlighting both opportunities and challenges. Grounded in frameworks of women's empowerment in tourism, internationalization of the curriculum, intercultural competence, and digital pedagogy, the findings deepen understanding of AI's potential and limitations in Virtual Exchange contexts. The study also offers practical guidance for educators on developing AI literacy, promoting ethical awareness, and enhancing student collaboration in online international learning environments.
