LIFELONG LEARNING FOR TOURISM

This paper examines the provision of education and training for tourism in The Commonwealth of Dominica, a destination heavily dependent on tourism. It provides an original consideration of lifelong learning for tourism. It reports the perspectives of major stakeholders, who reveal that tourism is taught intermittently as one topic, among others, during formal schooling, followed by a strong instrumental focus in post-secondary education and training. Stakeholders interviewed in this study see this approach as inappropriate. They indicate that a lifelong spiralled approach with opportunities spanning all stages of both formal and informal education and training would be more suitable. The paper presents possible approaches to achieving this.