Abstract:

Tourism alternatives are exploring new horizons. Deforestation, climate change, sea pollution and other causes involve the need to conserve natural heritage.

In this frame the concept of ecotourism appears, trying to combine conservation of nature with socioeconomic development of many local communities, involving a direct participation of them, so as a feedback between local people, tourists and nature.

The purpose of this study is to report about the necessity of the appearance of higher studies which show the keys for a properly functioning of sustainable tourism, and the way in which they appear. This is the context where the “MSc Degree on Management of Sustainable Tourism” is developed. This is an international online Master, through E-learning platform, whose coordinator is the Technical University of Madrid, and in which seven European countries are involved.

Through online learning platform, Moodle, it´s intended that students acquire skills in terms of sustainable and ecological tourism, such as conceptualisation of ecological tourism, teaching skills for a good environmental management and conservation of heritage, description of different ecotourism products as well as its commercialisation, the teaching of necessary tourism legislation, and the development of “social responsibility” concept and good environmental practices, among other.

Moodle platform facilitates interaction between students and teachers, while allowing the practical exercises and tests, getting the interconnection between universities worldwide.

Acknowledgement:
This work has been funded by the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA), as an Erasmus Multilateral Project through project number 539517-LLP-1-2013-1-ES-ERASMUS-EKA

Keywords:

e-learning, education, tourism, Master Degree, Lifelong Learning Programme, Erasmus.