Logies of tourismology: The need to include meta-theories in tourism curricula

Tourism as a field of study in tertiary education has matured significantly during the past few decades (Airey & Tribe, 2005). Academic program coordinators and administrators have become increasingly cognizant of the complex issues inherent in contemporary tourism studies. As a result, they no longer need to take the initial step of familiarizing themselves with the breadth of the tourism field in developing appropriate tourism curricula, as highlighted by Gunn (1998). Nonetheless, the various models of academic curricula established during the years suggest that the full academic scope of tourism has yet to be fully circumscribed to give due recognition to its multidisciplinary origin and its multifarious concomitant issues. Doctoral research projects and working theses are increasingly adopting interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary, and transdisciplinary perspectives to the study of tourism, and are highlighting the benefit of integrating the foundational meta-theories of these "mother disciplines" in both undergraduate and postgraduate tourism programs. This conceptual article reflects on the peculiar position of tourism as an academic subject in tertiary education and relies on the critical discussion of tourism educational perspectives from both the literature and practice in tourism academia to finally suggest the integration of meta-theories of major disciplines in tourism programs.