Abstract:
ABSTRACT
The tourism industry is considered as one of the rapidly booming industries in the world and it is a
vital industry that contributes to global economic development. The tourism industry of Sri Lanka
also makes a significant contribution to the national economy in many ways. Therefore, providing
tourism education since school level is very important to create professionals in the future tourism
industry and also gaining competencies in the related skills and attitudes. But the current school
education system in Sri Lanka has not yet paid considerable attention to introducing tourism
education like other subjects in school curricular. Meanwhile tourism education is being given as
diploma and degree levels targeting the tourism industry in Sri Lanka. But, considering the rapid
growth of industry, the output from these government and private institutes is insufficient to fulfill
requirements that have been demanded. Therefore, this study mainly aims to identify the effect of
providing tourism education in secondary education on Future of tourism industry by analyzing
teachers’ and parents’ perspective. Hence, the objectives of this study were to explore the teachers’
perspective on providing tourism education in secondary level education and to identify the parents’
perspective on providing tourism education in secondary level education in Sri Lanka. The primary
data was collected from 18 teachers and 15 parents by covering all the nine provinces in Sri Lanka.
Purposive sampling was used to formulate the sample and semi- structured interviews were used
to collect data. Under the qualitative research approach, collected data were transcribed and
analyzed by using thematic analysis method. The findings of the study revealed that respondents’
desires about providing tourism education. Moreover findings illustrated that mainly providing
tourism education affect for future employability of industry in many ways and how tourism
education should be provided in secondary education in schools. This study recommends to
enhance the awareness of tourism among teachers and parents, to introduce tourism as a basket
subject, to provide opportunity for practical exposure and promote foreign language fluency within
tourism education.
Key words: tourism education, secondary level education, future tourism industry, teachers’
perspective, parents’ perspective
