Project title
Connecting with Pyrenean mountain village communities: Developing value-based tourism educational program for practical skills
Research Unit
Primary investigator
Co investigators
Project period
2024/5/10 ～ 2025/3/31
Project summary
Value-based education has a wide range of meanings, but is often used in the sense of education that fosters citizenship, multicultural education and autonomous value judgements. In this research project, it is used in the sense of education that fosters the 'values' necessary to realise sustainable tourism. This study first examines academically what values are necessary to realise sustainable tourism. Furthermore, it aims to develop a practical value-based tourism education program in collaboration with a travel company specialising in the Pyrenees and Northern Spain and local governments, which aims to realise sustainable tourism in this way.
Activity and results reports
This project developed a practical tourism education program that focuses on values-based learning. The program is designed for university students studying tourism in Japan, with the Pyrenees region of Northern Spain—where green and rural tourism are widely practiced—selected as the field trip destination.
In the first phase, a transformative approach was adopted as the theoretical background based on interviews with tourism researchers and practitioners including Professor Johan Edelheim, and participant observation in the workshop on values-based learning at Hokkaido University. This approach categorizes values into multiple types and encourages teachers and students to explore them collaboratively, fostering a concrete understanding of values and value systems. Through this process, students engage deeply in critical self-reflection, heighten their awareness of ethics and values, and ultimately experience a shift in their worldview. This transformation nurtures an inner awareness and ethical consciousness among future tourism professionals, contributing to the further advancement of sustainable tourism. The program framework draws on activities presented in Teaching Tourism: Innovative, Values-Based Learning Experiences for Transformative Practices (Edelheim et al., 2022) and Arcodia & Dickson (2021).
In the second phase, based on the framework, we formulated and carefully reviewed the program's activities and selected the destinations. We conducted a field visit to the province of Huesca in the Aragón region, located in the central Pyrenees of Spain, where we interviewed local community members and carried out on-site inspections and observations. With the cooperation of Maria Susin Cirac, a representative of a local travel agency specializing in northern Spain, and Sakura Hosokawa, a coordinator and officially certified Spanish government guide, we designed the program to integrate local culture and activities, allowing students to gain new perspectives. Additionally, we developed and refined the content and activities for the pre- and post-program study.
As a result of this project, six students from the Faculty of Tourism participated in the program. Pre-departure training began in October 2024, and the students visited Spain from March 14 to 25, 2025.
＜Presentation and Publication＞
Firstly, participant observation and interview at a workshop on values-based learning held at Hokkaido University were conducted, and a field note based on the findings was submitted to the Wakayama Tourism Review. Consequently, the data and analysis results obtained from the program development stage to the present was presented at the 24th National Convention of the Japan Society for Tourism and Hospitality Educators (Ibaraki City, Osaka), along with future research directions. The findings were published in the conference proceedings book.
Publication:
- Shibamoto, Y. (in press). A reflective journey through Teaching Tourism: Values-based education for transformative learning. Wakayama Tourism Review, 6, (pp.33-35). Wakayama University Association for Tourism Studies. Center for Tourism Research, Wakayama University.
- Shibamoto, Y. (2025). Exploring Values-based Tourism Education Through an International Field Trip. the 24th Annual Conference Proceedings, Japanese Society for Tourism and Hospitality Educators - JSTHE.
Conference Presentation:
- Yurika Shibamoto: “Exploring Values-based Tourism Education Through an International Field Trip” the 24th Annual Conference of Japanese Society for Tourism and Hospitality Educators - JSTHE, 2025.3.8 (Ibaraki, Osaka, Japan)
