Reimagining Tourism Education for a Sustainable and Regenerative Future

This chapter reports findings from ERASMUS+ EcoHarmony (Ecoharmony project, 2024), amultinational initiative co-funded by the European Union that advances a comprehensive strategy toembed sustainable—and explicitly regenerative tourism within European higher education. Using asequential mixed-methods design (nine focus groups across Spain, Croatia, Turkey, Italy, Greece, andthe Netherlands; n = 70; followed by a cross-European survey; n = 198), the chapter examines: (1) theextent of sustainability and regenerative integration in curricula; (2) pedagogical, institutional, andtechnological barriers and enablers; and (3) scalable strategies to align programmes with 21st-centurydemands. Guided by systems thinking, transformative learning, and a regenerative tourism lens(toward regenerative justice), and attentive to digital transformation (AI/VR/blockchain), the analysisfinds progress but fragmentation: roughly 75% of institutions offer sustainability content, yet holistic,cross-curricular embedding is rare; familiarity with regeneration remains limited (≈20–25%). Barriersinclude legacy programme architectures, constrained faculty development, weak institutional support, and misaligned assessment practices. Enablers include rising student demand, motivated educators,and NGO–industry–government partnerships. The chapter proposes a practical roadmap, intentionalinterdisciplinarity, assessment reform (systems/ethics/collaboration), quality-assured micro-credentials, and hybrid experiential learning that blends digital simulations with fieldwork andinternships, to shift institutions from incremental improvements to systemic transformation.