Instructional Information and Communication Technology: opportunities and impediments to Hospitality and Tourism educators

Transformation or change is inevitable. Our society itself had evolved from agrarian to industrial, information and knowledge society. Hospitality and Tourism (HAT) industries should outperform all the other industries and come to the forefront. Therefore, HAT educators have a vital role to play in the new millennium of knowledge and learning in preparing suitable industry players. At this knowledge age, everyone in the industry and in the educational institutions should realise that knowledge is not a ready-made product developed and handed down by instructors to students. Rather students should construct it continually. Therefore, there is a need for a transformation in the instructional methodologies in HAT education. Technology may assist instructors and learners to change the way teaching and learning are done. The technology that is going to be chosen must be a latest application and even average people should have the capability to use the technology to solve every day problems and enrich their lives. Most importantly, it must be popular among the younger generation. There is only one technology that fulfils all these requirements and it is Information and Communication Technology (ICT). ICT has features like Internet, chat rooms, instant messaging, e-mails, etc., which are very popular among the students. Hospitality and tourism industry is a unique industry that requires global understanding and communication to encourage life long learning based on the changes in the environment. This can be realised through ICT. However, educators in the hospitality and tourism education are confronted with many challenges in exploiting the technology. They are inadequately prepared to integrate the technology in their classroom instructions due to many impediments ranging from their attitudes to handling the technology itself. This paper is a preliminary study to conduct an extensive survey to assess the readiness among the HAT educators to prepare knowledge workers for the Industry and to provide recommendations based on that