Skip to content
Journal On Tourism & Sustainability/JOURNAL ON TOURISM & SUSTAINABILITY/Article
Article recordVersion of recordOpen accessVol. 4 No. 1 (2020)May 30, 2026DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.20464902

4IR Impacts on Tourism Education and Industry

The advent of the 4th industrial revolution demands changes in the way Higher Education Institutions approach the future of tourism education and business. Issues raised in this paper concern the ways artificial intelli…

  • Contributor 1
  • Contributor 2
  • Contributor 3
  • Contributor 4

Reader actions

Resolve identifiers and download the published files.

View DOIDownload PDF
Abstract
Reader HTML view for the published article record.

The advent of the 4th industrial revolution demands changes in the way Higher Education Institutions approach the future of tourism education and business.  Issues raised in this paper concern the ways artificial intelligence (AI) is changing the tourism and hospitality industries. This paper questions the dynamics of Robotic teaching and expresses concern about the future of tourism education. Although the acceleration of the workforce reskilling or deskilling is as an imperative requirement, the paper argues that digital transformation and AI are more likely to depersonalise tourism through robotic management. The question that arises is whether this development substitutes for the human touch in a very socially interactive industry. Issues concerning recent technological developments and their impact on tourism education and industry are explored and discussed in this paper. Keywords: Industrial Revolution (1,2,3,4), Impacts, Tourism Education, Tourism and Hospitality Industry, AI, Robotic Management

References
Publication output reuses the stored scholarly reference text rather than a second reference system.
  1. 1.Azmi, A., Ahmad, N. C., Kayat, K., Abdullah, D., & Zubir, H. A. (2018). Industry 4.0: Teaching Preferences, Perceptions, and Challenges among Tourism and Hospitality Academicians // International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences. No 8 (15): 350 – 365.
  2. 2.Barron, P. (2007). Hospitality and tourism student part - time employment, patterns, benefits , and recognition. Journal of Hospitality, Leisure, Sport and Tourism Education, 6(2), 40 - 54.
  3. 3.Bernhardt A, Dresser L, Hatton E. (2003). The coffee pot wars: Unions and firm restructuring in the hotel industry. In: Appelbaum E, Bernhardt A, Murnane RJ, edit ors. Low - wage America: How employers are reshaping opportunity in the workplace. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, p 33 – 76.
  4. 4.Boserup, E. (1970). Women's Role in Economic Development, (London: Allen & Unwin).
  5. 5.Bowen, J. & Morosan, C. (2018). Beware hospital ity industry: the robots are coming. Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Themes, 10 (6), 726 - 733. https://doi.org/10.1108/whatt - 07 - 2018 - 0045.
  6. 6.Buenstorf, G., & Murmann, J. P. (2005). Ernst Abbe’s scientific management: Theoretical insights from a nineteenth - century dynamic capabilities approach. Industrial and Corporate Change, 14, 543 - 578.
  7. 7.Buhalis, D. & Sinarta, Y., (2019), Real - time co - creation and nowness service: lessons from tourism and hospitality, Journal of Travel and Tourism Marketing, Vol.36(5), pp. 563 - 582.
  8. 8.Buhalis, D., & Leung, R. (2018). Smart hospitality — Interconnectivity and interoperability towards an ecosystem. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 71, 41 - 50.
  9. 9.Busby, G. (2005). Work experience and industrial links. In D. Airey and J. Tribe (Eds.), An international handbook of tourism education. London, UK: Elsevier.
  10. 10.Cai, L., Card, J. A., & Cole, S. T. (2004). Content delivery performance of World Wide Web sites of US tour operators focusing on destinations in China. Tourism Managemen t, 25(2), 219 - 227. 11
  11. 11.Cervera - Taulet, A. & Ruiz - Molina, M. (2008). Tourism education: A strategic analysis model. Journal of Hospitality, Leisure, Sport & Tourism Education, 7(2), 59 - 70.
  12. 12.Dhiman, M. C. (2012). Employers’ perceptions about tourism management employability skills. An International Journal of Tourism and Hospitality Research, 23(3), 359 - 372.
  13. 13.Domina, A. & Luka, I. (2014). The compliance of tourism education with industry needs in Lativa. European Journal of Tourism, Hospitality and Recreation, S pecial issue, 303 - 330.
  14. 14.Fidgeon, P. R. (2010). Tourism education and curriculum design: A time for consolidation and review. Tourism Management, 31, 699 - 723.
  15. 15.Garcia, M., Tamara, F., & Eric, G. (2010). Potential applications of nanotechnology in the agro - f ood sector. Ciência e Tecnologia de Alimentos Campinas, 30, 573 – 581.
  16. 16.Gent, E. (2015). AI: Fears of 'playing God'. Engineering & Technology, 10(2), 76 - 79.
  17. 17.Guttentag, D.A. (2010), “Virtual reality: applications and implications for tourism”, Tourism Management, Vol. 31 No. 5, pp. 637 - 651.
  18. 18.Hanson K.T., Tang V.T. (2020) Perspectives on Disruptive Innovations and Africa’s Services Sector. In: Arthur P., Hanson K., Puplampu K. (eds) Disruptive Technologies, Innovation and Development in Africa. Internatio nal Political Economy Series. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978 - 3 - 030 - 40647 - 9_12
  19. 19.He, Z., Wu, L., & Li, X. R. (2018). When art meets tech: The role of augmented reality in enha ncing museum experiences and purchase intentions. Tourism Management, 68, 127 - 139.
  20. 20.Heywood, C. (1988). Childhood in Nineteenth - Century France. Work, Health and Education Among the Classes Populaires. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  21. 21.Howcroft, D. och Rubery, J. (2019). Bias in, Bias out’: gender equality and the future of work debate, Labour & Industry: a journal of the social and economic relations of work, 29:2, 213 - 227. (2019 - 10 - 02)
  22. 22.Humphries, J. (2011). Childhood and Child Labour in the British In dustrial Revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  23. 23.Hwang, G., Lee, J., Park, J., & Chang, T. (2016). Developing performance measurement system for Internet of Things and smart factory environment. International Journal of Production Research, 55(9 ), 2590 – 2602.
  24. 24.Hjalager, A. (2003). Global tourism careers. Opportunities and dilemmas facing higher education. Journal of Hospitality, Leisure, Sport and Tourism Education, 2(2), 1 - 12.
  25. 25.Ilori, M.O. & Ajagunna, I. (2020). Re - imagining the future of educatio n in the era of the fourth industrial revolution, Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Themes , Vol. 12 No. 1, pp. 3 -
  26. 26.12. https://doi.org/10.1108/WHATT - 10 - 2019 - 0066
  27. 27.Inanc - Demir, M. and Kozak, M. (2019), “Big data and its supporting elements: implications for tourism and hospitality marketing”, Big Data and Innovation in Tourism, Travel, and Hospitality, Springer, Singapore, pp. 213 - 223.
  28. 28.Ito, H. (2014). Challenges towards employability: Higher education’s engagement to industrial needs in Japan. Higher Education Studies, 4(2). doi: 10.5539/hes.v4n2p1 Ivanov, S. (2019a). U ltimate transformation: How will automation technologies disrupt the travel, tourism , and hospitality industries? Zeitschrift für Tourismuswissenschaft 11(1), 25 - 43. Ivanov, S. (2019b). Tourism beyond humans – robots, pets , and Teddy bears. In Rafailova, G. & Marinov, S. (Eds.) Tourism and Intercultural Communication and Innovations. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. 12 - 30.
  29. 29.Ivanov, D., Dolgui, A., Sokolov, B., Werner, F., & Ivanova, M. (2016). A dynamic model and an algorithm for shor t - term supply chain scheduling in the smart factory industry 4.0. International Journal of Production Research, 54(2), 386 - 402.
  30. 30.Kasza, J. (2019) Forth Industrial Revolution (4 IR): Digital Disruption of Cyber – Physical Systems. World Scientific News, 134( 2), 118 - 147 12
  31. 31.Kontogianni, A., Alepis, E., (2020), Smart Tourism: State of the art and literature review for the last six years, Array, 6, 100020, doi: 10.1016/j.array.2020.100020
  32. 32.Kruss, G. (2004). Employment and employability: Expectations of higher educati on responsiveness in South Africa. Journal of Education Policy, 19(6), 673 - 689. Kwok, A.O.,
  33. 33.Koh, S.G. (2018) Is blockchain technology a watershed for tourism development? Current Issues in Tourism 1:1 - 6.
  34. 34.Lamberton, C. P., & Stephen, A. T. (2015). Taking st ock of the digital revolution: A critical analysis and agenda for digital, social media, and mobile marketing research. Working paper,16. Oxford, GB: Saïd Business School.
  35. 35.Law, R., Buhalis, D., & Cobanoglu, C. (2014). Progress on information and communicat ion technologies in hospitality and tourism. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 26(5), 727 – 750.
  36. 36.Lee J - H, Pilkington M (2017) How the blockchain revolution will reshape the consumer electronics industry. IEEE Consum Electron Mag 6 (3):19 – 23 Lee, Keun, Chan - Yuan Wong, Patarapong Intarakumnerd, and Chaiyatorn Limapornvanich. (2019). “Is the 4th Industrial Revolution a Window of Opportunity for upgrading or reinforcing the Middle - income Trap?” Journal of Economic Policy Reform. DOI: 10 .1080/17487870.2019.1565411.
  37. 37.Li, J. J., Bonn, M. A., & Ye, B. H. (2019). Hotel employee's artificial intelligence and robotics awareness and its impact on turnover intention: The moderating roles of perceived organizational support and competitive psycholo gical climate. Tourism Management, 73, 172 - 181.
  38. 38.Littlejohn, D. & Watson, S. (2004). Developing graduate managers for hospitality and tourism. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 16(7), 408 - 414.
  39. 39.Loebbecke C, Picot A (2015) Reflect ions on societal and business model transformation arising from digitization and big data analytics: a research agenda. J Strateg Inf Syst 24(3):149 – 157.
  40. 40.Lou, N. M., So, A. S. I., & Hsieh, Y. J. (2019). Integrated resort employee competencies: A Macau pers pective. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 31 (1), 247 – 267.
  41. 41.Luedtke, J. R. (2011). History of women: Women’s contribution to aviation. Forum on Public Policy, 3(3), 1 – 14.
  42. 42.Liu, A. & Wall, G. (2006). Planning tourism employment: A developing country perspective. Tourism Management, 27(1), 159 - 170.
  43. 43.Mpofu, R. & Nicolaides, A. (2019). Frankenstein and the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR): Ethics and Human Rights Consideration s, African Journal of Hospitality, Tourism and Leisure, 8(5), a71.
  44. 44.Murphy, J., Hofacker, C., & Gretzel, U. (2017). Dawning of the Age of Robots in Hospitality and Tourism: Challenges for Teaching and Research. European Journal of Tourism Research, 15, 104 - 111.
  45. 45.Nadkarani, S. & Morris, S. (2019). Innovation - centric courses in hospitality management education in Dubai, Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Themes, Vol. 11 No. 2.
  46. 46.Nam K, Dutt SC, Chathoth P, Khan SM (2019) Blockchain technology for smart city and sm art tourism: latest trends and challenges. J Asia Pac J Tour Res 24(5):71 – 87
  47. 47.Nicholas, S. & Oxley, D. (1993). The Living Standards of Women During the Industrial Revolution, 1795 - 1820, Economic History Review, 46, pp. 723 - 49.
  48. 48.Onditi F., Gateru R. (2020) T echnologizing Infrastructure for Peace in the Context of Fourth Industrial Revolution. In: Doorsamy W., Paul B., Marwala T. (eds) The Disruptive Fourth Industrial Revolution. Lecture Notes in Electrical Engineering, vol 674. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978 - 3 - 030 - 48230 - 5_3 .
  49. 49.Oppenheimer, V. K. (1994). Women's rising employment and the future of the family in industrial societies. Population and Development Review, 20, 293 - 341. 13
  50. 50.Oppenheime r, V. K. (1997). Women's employment and the gain to marriage: The specialization and trading model. Annual Review of Sociology, 23, 431 - 453
  51. 51.Ozbolat IT, Yu Y. (2013). Bioprinting toward organ fabrication: challenges and future trends. IEEE Trans Biomed Eng 60:691 – 699.
  52. 52.Oztemel E, Gursev S (2018) Literature review of Industry 4.0 and related technologies. Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing DOI 10.1007/s10845 - 018 - 1433 - 8, URL https://doi.org/10. 1007/s10845 - 018 - 1433 - 8 1
  53. 53.Ring, A., Dickinger, A. & Worber, K. (2009). Designing the ideal undergraduate program in tourism. Expectations from Industry and Educators, 48(1), 106 - 121.
  54. 54.Roberts, E. (2009). Mind the gap: Aligning learning and graduate outcomes through ind ustry partnerships. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management, 16, 130 - 138. doi 10.1375/jhtm.16.1.130
  55. 55.Railean, E. A. (2017). Impacts of Digital Revolution on Learning. En User Interface Design of Digital Textbooks (pp. 1 - 22). Singapur: Springer Singap ore. doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/978 - 981 - 10 - 2456 - 6_1
  56. 56.Rosete, A., Soares, B., Salvadorinho, J., Reis, J., & Amorim, M. (2020, February). Service Robots in the Hospitality Industry: An Explorat ory Literature Review. In International Conference on Exploring Services Science (pp. 174 - 186). Springer, Cham
  57. 57.Sheldon, P., Fesenmaier, D., Woeber, K., Cooper, C. & Antonioli, M. (2007). Tourism education futures 2010 – 2030: Building the capacity to lead. J ournal of Teaching in Travel and Tourism, 7(3), 61 - 68.
  58. 58.Spender, J. C. & Kijne, H. (eds) (1996) Scientific Management: Frederick Winslow Taylor’s Gift to the World? Boston, MA: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
  59. 59.Stankov, U., Filimonau, V. and Slivar, I. (2018), “ Calm ICT design in hotels: A critical review of applications and implications”, International Journal of Hospitality Management, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhm.2018.10.012
  60. 60.Thayer, F. C. (1972). Pro ductivity: Taylorism revisited (round three). Public Administration Review, 32, 833 - 840.
  61. 61.Timms, M.J. (2016). Letting Artificial Intelligence in Education out of the Box: Educational Cobots and Smart Classrooms. International Journal of Artificial Intellige nce in Education, 26(2), 701 - 712.
  62. 62.Tung, V. W. S., & Law, R. (2017). The potential for tourism and hospitality experience research in human - robot interactions. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 29(10), 2498 - 2513.
  63. 63.Tung, V. W. S., & Au, N. (2018). Exploring customer experiences with robotics in hospitality. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management (in press), doi: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJCHM - 06 - 201 7 - 0322
  64. 64.Tymon, A. (2013). The student perspective on employability. Studies in Higher Education, 38(6), 841 - 856. doi: 10.1080/03075079.2011.604408
  65. 65.Vecchio, P. D., Mele, G., Ndou, V., Secundo, G. (2017). Creating value from social big data: Implications for smart tourism destinations, Information Processing and Management. doi:10.1016/j.ipm.2017.10.006.
  66. 66.Wakelin - Theron, N. (2015). The additional skills required of tourism graduates for retention within the tourism industry. African Journal for Physical Health Education, Recreation and Dance, (December), Supplement, 242 - 256.
  67. 67.Wang, W. - C., Chou, L. - S., & Wu, C. - C. (2010). Impacts of new transportation technology on tourism - related industries - The Taiwan high speed rail. World Leisure Journal, 52(1), 14 – 19.
  68. 68.Wagn er - Tsukamoto, S. (2007). An institutional economic reconstruction of scientific management: on the lost theoretical logic of Taylorism, Academy of Management Review, Vol. 32 No. 1, pp. 105 - 17. 14
  69. 69.Wakelin - Theron, N., Ukpere, W. I., & Spowart, J. (2019). Determ ining tourism graduate employability, knowledge, skills, and competencies in a VUCA world: Constructing a tourism employability model. African Journal of Hospitality, Tourism and Leisure,
  70. 70.Wirtz, J., Patterson, P., Kun z, W., Gruber, T., Lu, V. N., Paluch, S., & Martins, A. (2018). Brave New World: Service Robots in the Frontline. Journal of Service Management, 29(5), 907 - 931.
  71. 71.Wrege, C.D. & Stotka, A.M. (1978). Cooke creates a classic: The story behind F.W. Taylor's Prin ciples of Scientific Management. Academy of Management Review, , 3, 736 - 749.
  72. 72.Wren, D. A. (2011). The Centennial of Frederick W. Taylor’s The Principles of Scientific Management: A Retrospective Commentary. Journal of Business & Management, Vol. 17, No. 1, pp. 11 - 21.
  73. 73.Yu, Chung - En (2018). Perceptual differences toward humanlike robo ts and humans in service: Individualist versus collectivist cultures. In C. Mauer & B. Neuhofer (Eds) ISCONTOUR 2018 , Tourism Research Perspectives: Proceedings of the International Student Conference in Tourism Research (p. 323 - 332).
  74. 74.Yu, Q., Yuan, C., Fu, Z., & Zhao, Y. (2012). An autonomous restaurant service robot with high positioning accuracy. Industrial Robot: An International Journal, 39(3), 271 - 281.
  75. 75.Zehrer, A. & Mossenlechner, C. (2009). Key competencies of tourism graduates: The employers’ point of view. Journal of Teaching in Travel and Tourism, 9(3 - 4), 266 - 287. Contributors: Dr Vasiliki Avgeli, MBS College of Crete , Greece ; Dr Ali Bakir, Bucks New University, UK ; Dr Mohanad, A. Dahlan, UBT, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia ; Professor Eugenia Wickens, OTS, Oxford, UK Corresponding Author: Dr Vasiliki Avgeli. Email: vasiliki.avgeli@gmail.com 15