Abstract:

The growing importance of sustainability and sustainable development has prompted a wide range of educational initiatives aiming to raise awareness towards the short- and long-term social, economic and environmental impacts of overall consumer and industry behaviours in a different sectors.

Focusing on the tourism and hospitality industries, and, most specifically, on Tourism Higher Education (THE), the following paper will describe the Interdisciplinary Project (IP) “Sustainability and Tourism: From Theory to Practice”, whose outputs included the design and upkeep of a bilingual blog, as well as the development of training sessions addressing the importance of sustainable tourism, both from the supply and demand perspectives. Currently on its second edition, the project has prompted students to not only produce original multimedia content (namely, podcasts, videos and blog posts), but also discuss relevant topics pertaining to sustainability, resulting in the development of training sessions targeting their peers. Focusing on different industry subsectors, these sessions were carried out, with the feedback from participants being collected and analyzed as to inform future initiatives and activities.

Drawing from this experience, and based on observation, documentary research, and questionnaires applied to the participants, this paper outlines the project’s implementation and development, as well as its overall results, crossing students’ initial expectations with their final perceptions on the activities carried out. In addition, it also establishes the potential impact of Project-Based Learning (PBL) and interdisciplinarity in students’ learning experience, motivation and agency.

Given its iterative and interactive nature, thus far the project has succeeded in raising participants’ awareness towards the importance of sustainability, with students perceiving it as having the potential to modify behaviours. By documenting students’ learning journey and its impact, this paper will make a case for Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) within the tourism industry, exploring the affordances of collaborative environments and innovative teaching and learning strategies, informing future initiatives and projects within this scope.

Keywords:

Blog, Collaboration, Interdisciplinarity, Project-Based Learning, Sustainability, Tourism Education.