High schools that practice tourism education are scattered throughout the country. However, few studies have investigated the current state of tourism education in such schools. The purpose of this study was to clarify the problems of tourism education in high schools and to contribute to the development of tourism education in the future. Therefore, we analyzed previous research and surveys showing the current state of high school tourism. In addition, we conducted surveys and analyzed the attitudes of high school and university students. Furthermore, regarding the direction of high school tourism education in the future, we considered the description of tourism education in the next high school study guideline.
Results indicated that tourism education in high school is practiced mainly through experiential content and nurtures “independent and interactive deep learning,” as indicated in the next course of study. In addition, questionnaire results from the students clarified that the level of satisfaction with tourism education is high, but the interest in tourism learning are not linked. Some problems remain in the systems of tourism education, leadership training, and succession. Furthermore, it was found that there is a need to create a system for sharing information obtained from various aspects of tourism education as common teaching materials and instruction methods in order to sustain tourism education at high schools.
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