TEFI
TOURISM EDUCATION FUTURES INITIATIVE
About
Tourism Education Futures Initiative, known as TEFI, came together as a network in 2006 as a result of concerns over the “seismic changes” taking place in higher education. Professors Pauline Sheldon and Dan Fesenmaier convened the first conference at Modul University, Vienna, with a focus on the need for change.
TEFI is continuously evolving and represents a network of educators, researchers, industry actors, and community members who seek a progressive approach to tourism education and research. We are inclusive, diverse and represent a progressive and creative community.
Tourism educational programs need to fundamentally retool and redesign—not incrementally by adding new courses or simply by putting courses on-line—but by changing the nature of what is taught and how it is taught.
~ Pauline Sheldon, TEFI Founder. 2006.
OUR MISSION
TEFI seeks to be the leading, forward-looking network inspiring, informing, and supporting tourism educators and students to passionately and courageously co-create tourism for a better world.
OUR Vision
Our ambition is to move beyond business as usual, and exploitative, and extractive approaches towards sustainable, just and responsible tourism. We seek to co-create spaces of learning with diverse communities, including governments, practitioners, host communities, and scholars. We value education as a two-way process that moves us towards kinder, more respectful, and inclusive approaches to tourism.
ACTIVITIES
Centering care in everything we do
The distinguishing feature of TEFI is that we care for much more than publications, metrics and citations. We believe that long term sustainability must involve holistic and regenerative approaches and that tourism is intimately bound up in a larger and more complex world which we cannot divorce ourselves. Our inspirational network reminds us that there is so much to learn from each other in the process of caring for people and the planet. We are committed to Intergenerational learning and mutually connecting with TEFI Fellows and emerging scholars.
Get Involved
Power Hours
Regular zoom sessions to check-in, connect and share.
CONFERENCES
Organised conferences, walking workshops and events.
JOIN TEFI
TEFI is a community of tourism, hospitality and events educators.
Learning
Professional development, courses, and materials.
We are stronger together
The education environment is changing rapidly. In order to navigate this change, we partner with leading-edge thinkers, change-makers and organisations. If you would like to see your organisation's logo here and are interested in supporting TEFI, contact us!
