key: cord-0040528-1wdmx1zj authors: Leal, Sérgio; Padilha, Maria Auxiliadora title: Brazil and Latin America date: 2009-11-16 journal: An International Handbook of Tourism Education DOI: 10.1016/b978-0-08-044667-7.50012-4 sha: 9c609de78ad4d1351c2e138a4642b820dfe98978 doc_id: 40528 cord_uid: 1wdmx1zj nan Since a long time, tourism education has been a topic of debate in academia and numerous studies have been published about the theme in some of the major international specialised journals (see e.g. Jafari & Ritchie, 1981; Airey & Johnson, 1999; Tribe, 2002) . Some parts of the world, however, have been left out of the discussion for several years, as is the case of Latin America, only more recently addressed by Pizam (1999) . Also, only a limited number of researchers have approached the topic of tourism education provision in countries of the region, such as Charles (1997) , who wrote about the past and future development of tourism and hospitality education and training in the Caribbean region and Knowles, Teixeira, and Egan (2003) who presented a comparison of tourism and hospitality education in Brazil and in the United Kingdom (UK). Similarly, tourism research has become a very much-examined topic in specialised publications, academic conferences and discussions worldwide (see e.g. Van Doren, Koh, & McCahill, 1994; Botterill, Haven & Gale, 2002; Page, 2003) . Once again, Latin America has not been a focal point of attention of researchers and no major international publication has dealt with the topic in the region to date. Brazil is used in this chapter to highlight the major concerns and indicate some of the tendencies of education and research in tourism in Latin America. Initially, an overview of tourism education and research in the Latin American context is given. Then, a description of the Brazilian education system is offered, followed by a discussion of the main issues regarding Tourism Higher Education (THE) and research in the country. Finally, conclusions about the development of tourism as a subject in higher education in Latin America are drawn out. major concerns and perceptions of key tourism 'industry' stakeholders from the region, including businesses and government bodies, on the topic of human resources in the tourism sector. The study shows that the private sector perceives a shortage of qualified labour force in the 'industry' at all levels, especially with regard to the very much-needed skills of foreign languages, information technology and marketing. Tourism education is seen as a problematic issue in the region and as one of the major reasons for the lack of qualified human resources in the sector. Both, employers and National Tourism Organisations, perceive the material taught in tourism education in institutions from their own countries as irrelevant to the real needs of the 'industry'. Also, the lack of dialogue between education providers and businesses is reported by the two sets of respondents as a point of concern. According to Schliiter (2003) , Latin American studies on tourism research have been greatly influenced by Jafari and Aaser's paper on the development of doctoral dissertations with tourism as a subject of investigation. Analogous studies have been developed in countries such as Cuba and Brazil, where, according to Schliiter, the most significant and complete study of the topic in the region (Rejowski, 1996) has been done to date. The existence of refereed tourism journals in the region since the early 1990s is an indication of the growing maturity of the subject in some Latin American countries, such as Argentine and Brazil. Also, the publication of some articles of the Argentinean Estudios y Perspectivas en Tiirismu (Tourism Studies and Perspectives) in English and the bilingual publication of all issues of the Brazilian Turismo: Vis60 e A@ (Tourism: Vision and Action), in Portuguese and English, give an opportunity to researchers from the region to disseminate their studies to the international academic community. However, it is noteworthy that such journals still reach domestic academics much more than their international peers. To understand fully the provision of THE in Brazil, it is necessary to comprehend the Brazilian education system. Brazilian provision of education is highly regulated by the government through the Ministry of Education and the Federal Council of Education. The government is the main pre-university education provider, with only a small share of the provision of this level of education in the hands of private institutions. At the tertiary level, on the other hand, the number of private Higher Education Institutions has increased significantly since the New Education Principles and Guidelines Act (Lei de Diretrizes e Bases), which sets out the structure of the Brazilian education system (Brazil, 1996) . The liberalisation of the education sector in Brazil and other Latin American countries was a result of the subordination to multilateral agencies, such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization, which sponsor projects and programmes in the country and directly influence the education policies according to their own interests (Antunes, 2002; Santos, 2002) . Even with a significant increase in the supply of higher education in the country, the percentage of youngsters aged between 18 and 24 that get to university education is only 12%, that is, the smallest in Latin America (Gomes, 2004) . In comparison to the UK, higher education in Brazil is a lot more didactic, with more modules and course hours. A bachelor degree in tourism, for instance, has to have at least 3000 course hours spread over a minimum of 4 years (Ansarah, 2002) . Besides the traditional route to higher education (4-year programmes), industry-oriented 2-year programmes are a recent addition to the provision. All undergraduate curricula are fixed and specified by government bodies and have a similar core curriculum in each subject area, which facilitates the organisation and standardisation of programmes. This approach, however, generally overlooks the regional needs of some parts of the country. At the postgraduate level, there are two main routes available to students, the Iato seii~u programmes and the stricto sensu ones. The former encompasses taught programmes with a minimum of 360 course hours. Such programmes do not award degree titles, just certificates, and are vocational in essence, directed to the development of professional skills. The stricto sensu programmes are the equivalent to MPhil programmes and the doctorates, with a minimum of 2 4 years, respectively. Their objectives are mainly academic and scientific. There is also the vocational masters' degree (Mestrudo Pro~ssionulizui~te), which attempts to research and apply specific knowledge to the context of the professional world. Teacher qualification is a very important aspect for programmes and institutions in the country because of the value given by the government during the authorisation process and periodic evaluation of programmes (CEETudSESulMEC, 2001) . Because of the rapid increase in the supply of higher education in the country over the last 10 years, there is currently a shortage of qualified teachers to serve all new undergraduate programmes. The provision of THE in Brazil was initiated in 1971 with the launch of the earliest bachelor degree in tourism in the country, at Faculdude de Turisrno do Morumbi, in Brazil's largest city -Sao Paulo. This institution is now part of one of the leading private universities in the country in the areas of tourism and hospitality. The Brazilian experience with the provision of THE is different from the North American and European ones, where the offering of tourism-related modules in other subject area programmes took place before the creation of tourism degree programmes. Also, Brazilian hospitality and hotel management programmes were only created subsequently to tourism ones, with the first hotel management programme launched in 1978 (Rejowski, 1996) . According to Ansarah (2002) , the provision of THE in Brazil can be divided into four distinct phases. The earliest one, the 1970s, was marked by the creation of the country's first programmes. The second phase, the 1980s, was affected by the impacts of the economic crises that most Latin American countries were facing and few new programmes were created during this decade. The 1990s, on the other hand, represented a milestone in the provision of higher education in Brazil. During this period, the number of tourism programmes increased considerablymore than 900% according to Teixeira (2001) . The fourth phase, according to Ansarah (2002) , will be marked by a search for a balance between quantity and quality of programmes. Alternative curricula will be developed and unconventional programme titles (e.g. Events Management, Eco-tourism, Recreation, etc.) will be created in order to meet the particular needs of each region of the country. The evolution of the growth in the number of tourism programmes in higher education in Brazil is presented in Table 1 . Due to the difficulties in obtaining official data about the provision, different sources are used and there are some discrepancies among the discrete sources. Such inconsistencies, whenever different numbers were available, are identified throughout Table 1 . Data about the period prior to 1994 were not available, restricting the examination to the 1994-2005 period. From the nearly 3.5 million students enrolled in higher education programmes in Brazil in 2000, almost 70,000 were in travel, tourism andor leisure education, roughly 2% of all Table 1 : The growth in number of tourism undergraduate bachelor degree programmes in Brazil (1994-200s) . Number 8341.**.***** Ansarah and Rejowski (1994, cited in Ansarah. 2002) . hSilva, F. (2002) . Hotelorin e turisrno trnrem rnuitns opp5es de nrunpio. Available at http://www 1 .folha.uol.coni.br/folha/educacao/ult3OSu9304.shtml, retrieved January 18, 2005. Ansarah and Rejowski (1996. cited in Ansarah, 2002) . tertiary-level enrolments in the country.' This figure, however, is likely to have increased significantly over the last 5 years, since the number of programmes almost tripled from 2000. According to Silveira (2001, p. 52) : Lamentably the number of technical courses is not very significant and the reality is that with an oversupply of undergraduate courses the market for this kind of human resources is being filled with overqualified professionals that lack in terms of basic skills. At the postgraduate level, tourism-taught programmes are becoming increasingly more popular in Brazil. However, the number of research degree programmes is still far lower than the country's needs, especially when it comes to the need for qualified lecturers for the numerous undergraduate programmes. In 2004, there were only four programmes that were the equivalent to the UK's MPhil and only two doctorate programmes (Lohmann, 2004) . These numbers are better understood when contrasted with the bigger picture. In 2000, there were a total of 1490 research masters' programmes and 821 doctorate programmes available in the country.' Although tourism has been the subject of postgraduate research in several programmes, the first postgraduate tourism degree programme was only created in 1993 (Rejowski, 1996) . Taught masters' programmes, 'industry'-oriented, on the other hand, have grown considerably over the last years. Most private institutions offering tourism education at the undergraduate level see postgraduate taught programmes as a market opportunity to attract more students. However, supply is becoming greater than demand and several programmes do not have a sufficient number of students to start off a group. Table 2 presents the number of tourism postgraduate programmes in the country. According to Lohmann (2004) , an undesirable lack of balance was generated in the country by the high number of undergraduate courses in contrast with the low number Taught Masters (specialisation) Not availablea Research Masters" 4h, 5' Doctorate" 2h.c *Although the number is not available, it is believed to be by far larger than the others once the legal and academic requirements are more flexible, and no institution needs to have their programmes authorised beforehand. Lohmann (2004) . Panosso Netto (2003) . * Different from the structure adopted in countries such as the UK, where programmes are reaearch-based only, both programmes in Brazil have an initial taught phase followed by a research one. of research degree programmes. The need for qualified teachers, in particular, is deeply affected by this situation, where, at the same time, the number of undergraduate programmes increases, very few opportunities for research degrees are available to prospective lecturers. The sustainability of the tourism education sector in the country might be under threat because of the high number of institutions and graduates (Mota, 2003) in a market that, as Pizam (1999) highlights, perceives low standards of quality and irrelevance of what is being taught in the programmes to the real needs of the 'industry'. Mota (2003) believes tourism education in Brazil may be facing the maturity stage of its life cycle and planning is the only way to prolong this stage and avoid an early decline of the sector. She proposes a major study to estimate the actual growth of the tourism 'industry' and measure the amount of human resources needed to fulfil the real needs of the sector. The links between THE providers and the industry are virtually non-existent in most cases. As in most countries, the balance between entrepreneurial, professional, academic and vocational skills is an extremely difficult matter for most Brazilian institutions (Silveira, 2001) . The lack of recognition of the importance of tourism education and training in formal institutions by most 'industry' stakeholders is an immense obstacle for further partnerships in the creation of new programmes and adaptation of existing ones. It also means that graduates are not highly valued by the 'industry'. Regarding the quality of programmes, the Ministry of Education, pressured by the growing recognition tourism education was gaining in the academy and the increase in the number of programmes, decided to create a commission of tourism experts (Ansarah, 2002) . The founding members of this commission were responsible for preparing a set of benchmark standards for the evaluation of quality of tourism undergraduate programmes in the country (CEETur/SESu/MEC, 2001). Such benchmarks are used by committees visiting institutions for authorising the opening of new programmes as well as for validating existing ones after the first group graduates. Rejowski (1 996) made an important study of the development of tourism research in the country. In this study, the author presents a list of all 55 dissertations and theses related to tourism that led to an academic award at the postgraduate level in Brazilian institutions from 1975 to 1992. She highlights that such research was developed in different faculties, departments and programmes (e.g. geography, communications, business, urban and regional planning, etc.), especially because the first institution to offer a tourism research degree programme, the Universidude de S6o Puulo (USP), only initiated its programme in 1993. From the creation of the first Brazilian postgraduate programmes in the 1960s to the first tourism research degree programme in 1993, tourism has received the attention of academics from different subjects (Rejowski, 1996) . The creation of the country's first tourism programme at the postgraduate level, however, was a milestone for the further development of tourism research. In addition to the offering of tourism research degree programmes, the establishment of academic journals and the publication of tourism-related books also helped Brazilian tourism research to grow. According to Panosso Netto (2003) , knowledge development in Brazil faces several limitations and, as a result, cutting-edge research is generally outdated when compared to the state of the art internationally. He notes that the epistemology of tourism, for instance, has been seriously discussed by international researchers for over 40 years, whereas the topic has only been the focus of attention in Brazil for a decade or so. One important aspect restricting the development of cutting-edge tourism research in the country in the past was the fact that most researchers did not have access to international publications, first, because of the costs involved in subscribing to them, and second, because of the language barrier. The government's agency for human resources development in higher education (Coordenap?o de Apeqeigoainento de Pessoal de Ni'vel Superior -CAPES) has recently invested a large amount of money to provide electronic access to the major international journals in all subject areas for every single public Higher Education Institution and for private universities offering at least one doctorate programme that has achieved a positive evaluation (five or more in a seven-point scale).' However, the language barrier is still a problem to be overcome. The growth of tourism education during the 1990s stimulated the creation of institutional journals (but many were more similar to newsletters than to refereed journals) and a few nationally recognised refereed ones. Currently, there are only four refereed journals in the country acknowledged by most members of the tourism academic community. The growing number of tourism education providers and tourism journals in Brazil, in addition to the increasing interest about it in the academy and the easier access to international cutting-edge research, may lead to the consolidation of a knowledge base of tourism as a research topic. It is argued, however, that the majority of Brazilian tourism research may still lack conceptual, theoretical and methodological maturity. Lohmann (2004) , while making a comparison between tourism research in Brazil and Australia, argues that there is no Brazilian similar to the Council for Australian University Tourism and Hospitality Education (CAUTHE). As a result, there is no academic conference in the country directed to tourism experts and no outlet for cutting-edge research. However, he also notes that the recent creation of the National Association of Postgraduate Tourism Programmes (ANPTUR in the Portuguese acronym), is expected to help promote tourism research in Brazil while giving researchers the opportunity for networking. It is also important to note that several other initiatives, such as the Tourism Research Seminar of MERCOSUR5 (the Southern Cone Common Market), organised by the Universidade de Information available at the portal from where researchers within the institutions' networks access the journals http://www.presidentekennedy.br/retur. MERCOSUR is a free-trade organisation founded by Argentine, Brazil. Paraguay and Uruguay in the 1990s. (http://www.periodicos.capes.gov.br/). Integration of education systems throughout its member states is among the priorities of the organisation. Cuxius do Sul, have developed over the last few years and some events are getting more popular among the members of the tourism academic community. These recent initiatives are likely to help improve the quality of tourism research in the region. Although tourism education and research in Latin America is still in its infancy, it seems to be taking its first steps into maturity with the explosion in the number of undergraduate programmes and with the consolidation of some postgraduate research degree programmes and refereed journals across the region. Important episodes throughout the world over the last few years (e.g. foot and mouth disease in the UK, terrorist attacks in the United States. Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in Asia and other parts of the world and, more recently, the Asian Tsunami) have deeply impacted on the tourism sector and regions not directly affected have the opportunity for attracting a larger number of international tourists than ever. Therefore, tourism is expected to grow in most Latin American countries and the perceived need for quality education and training for the sector, highlighted in Pizam's (1999) work, will also grow. The possible strengthening of the links between 'industry' and education providers may lead to the further development of applied research. Besides, improved communications, offered by recent technological developments, especially the internet, have facilitated the access to international cutting-edge research and Latin American researchers are starting to take part in the international tourism academic community, by both keeping abreast in terms of scholarship of developments in tourism and publishing their own work. The content of tourism degree courses in the UK. Tourisn? ForniapZo e capacitapTo do profissional em turisrno e hotelaria: Reflexdes e cadastro das institui@es educacionais no Brasil 0 s sentidos do trabalho: ensuio sobre a a$nnapio e ci negapio do trabalho A survey of doctoral theses accepted by universities in the UK and Ireland for studies related to tourism Lei no 9.394, de 20/12/1996. Estabelece as diretrizes e bases da educag2o nacional. Diario Ofcial du Unido. Brasilia: Grifica do Senado, year CXXXIV Manual de Orientaqdo para Vertficapio 'In Loco ' das Condiqdes de Reconhecimento. Brasflia: MEC Tourism education and training in the Caribbean: Preparing for the 21st century Relagiio governo e educapTo superior iias dkadas de 1980 e 1990: uni olhar coniparativo I). Towards a framework for tourism education Tourism and hospitality education in Brazil and the UK: A comparison. biternntional Journal of Coritemporar?/ Hospitality Management Pesquisa em turismo e hotelaria na Austrilia. E o B r a d com isso? Turismo en7 Andlise Concepq2o de um Planejamento Sustentavel da Educaqio Superior em Turismo e Hotelaria no Brasil. Turisnio em Ann'lise Evaluating research performance in tourism: The UK experience 0 Problema Espistemol6gico no Turismo: Uma Discuss20 Te6rica The state of travel and tourism human resources in Latin America Turisnio epesquisn cientificu: pensamento internaciorial X situaqfio hrasileiru 0 s processos da globalizaqio Metodologia da Pesquisa em Turisnio e Hotelaria An appraisal of the higher education systeiii for tourism in Brazil, huving fhe World Tourism Organization 's ,framework as benchmark Ensino Superior em Turismo e Hotelaria no Brasil: Um estudo explorat6rio Rethinking of education and training for tourism Tourism research: A state-of-the-art citation analysis (1971-1990) SCrgio Leal would like to thank the Programme Alpan (the European Union Programme of High Level Scholarships for Latin America, scholarship no. E04D049282BR) and Fuculdudes Integrudus du Vito'riu de Sunto Antiio for the support given for his Ph.D. studies in the UK. Maria Auxiliadora Padilha would also like to thank Fuculdudes Integrudus du Vitdriu de Sunto Antiio.