Abstract:

Sustainability has become a defining challenge for the global tourism sector. Tourism management graduates are increasingly expected to understand the relationships between economic development, environmental protection, social wellbeing, and community resilience. Yet despite the prominence of sustainability in policy and industry discourse, many Higher Education tourism programmes still struggle to embed Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) meaningfully across the curriculum, often treating it as a discrete topic or specialist module.

This presentation examines how sustainability can be positioned as a core organising principle within tourism management education. It explores the integration of an industry-informed framework for sustainable destination management into an undergraduate tourism degree programme and uses this experience as a starting point for wider reflection on how universities can embed ESD across tourism curricula.

The framework used within the programme is the VERB Model (Visitor, Environment, Residents, Businesses). The model aligns with the quadruple bottom-line approach to sustainability planning and provides a structured lens through which students can analyse the competing interests shaping tourism destinations. Rather than presenting sustainability as an abstract concept, the model helps students understand how sustainable tourism operates in practice through the balancing of visitor experience, environmental stewardship, community wellbeing, and business viability.

The presentation outlines how the model has been embedded across the curriculum through collaboration with industry partners, experiential learning activities, and authentic assessment design. Students engage with sustainability through applied tasks such as destination analysis, stakeholder mapping, and consultancy-style projects with local tourism organisations. These activities aim to bridge the long-recognised gap between sustainability theory and professional practice in tourism education.

However, the presentation goes beyond reporting a curriculum case study. It uses this example to stimulate wider discussion around the challenge of embedding Education for Sustainable Development in Higher Education. Many programmes recognise sustainability as important but struggle to integrate it coherently across modules, learning outcomes, and assessment practices. This session therefore explores how industry frameworks, collaborative partnerships, and experiential learning design can help translate sustainability principles into curriculum structures that support deeper student understanding and practical capability. The presentation argues that effective ESD requires more than adding sustainability content. It requires intentional curriculum design, opportunities for students to work with real stakeholders and real problems, and assessment approaches that allow learners to apply sustainability principles in authentic contexts.

By sharing both the curriculum approach and lessons from implementation, the presentation aims to contribute to wider discussion about how Higher Education institutions can better prepare graduates to address the sustainability challenges facing the tourism sector. Participants will be encouraged to reflect on how similar approaches might be adapted within their own programmes and how collaborative curriculum design can strengthen the role of sustainability within tourism education.

Keywords:

Sustainability, Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), tourism, curriculum design.