Development of a transformative tourism education model for improved community-based tourism management in Zimbabwe

Abstract

Community-Based Tourism (CBT) projects in Zimbabwe thrived during donor funding but struggle afterward due to a lack of strategy and management expertise. This research explores stakeholder perceptions regarding CBT and examine whether the current bachelor’s level tourism curriculum is adequately covering CBT. The research also aimed to identify strategies for equipping tourism graduates with the skills needed to develop and manage CBT initiatives effectively. The study is guided by the sustainability, Mezirow’s transformative learning and the decolonisation theories, using a mixed methodology. The findings reveal that stakeholders hold diverse perspectives on CBT, and the understanding of CBT is still underdeveloped. The study highlights that CBT is inadequately covered in tourism education curricula, leading to a disconnect between academic training and industry demands. Identified gaps include a curriculum lack of focus on sustainability, pedagogical shortcomings, and the application of Eurocentric ideas and epistemologies, while undervaluing indigenous knowledge systems which could provide valuable insights especially in environmental stewardship and community resilience. This has sparked calls to decolonise the tourism curriculum and adopt a heritage-based curriculum that aligns it with the needs of the tourism industry and the local communities. This calls for revising the curricula to include indigenous perspectives, critically examining power dynamics, local perspectives, values, knowledge systems and frameworks that fosters inclusivity and self-representation in tourism narratives, practices and policies. The study suggests integrating CBT as a dedicated module at bachelor’s level to foster a comprehensive understanding of the concept as well as a step towards a heritage-based curriculum. The study also advocated for the use of transformative pedagogies that encourages critical thinking such as experiential learning, problem-based learning, and emancipatory learning. A transformative education model for improved CBT management developed through this research focuses on six core areas to enhance CBT: CBT education, transformative pedagogies, partnerships and collaboration, community engagement, collective action, and local capacity building. The study calls on educational institutions to take an active role in CBT development and recommends that rural district councils establish dedicated tourism departments to ensure sustainable tourism development in their regions.