Role of Micro-credentials and Open Badges in Sustainable Tourism Education

Sustainable development in tourism calls for reskilling and upskilling workforce. Research in tourism studies has questioned whether tourism education is able to produce critical practitioners who are able to deal with challenges faced in sustainability. This qualitative study explores the role of micro-credentials and open badges in sustainable tourism education. Through the lens of transformative learning, we examine how tourism companies and destination management organisations perceive sustainable development, and how they understand updating tourism worker’s competences in the topic. The study classifies these interested parties’ perceptions of social, cultural, economic, and ecological sustainability in tourism with their aligned cognitive, meta-cognitive and transformative learning approaches. The companies and destination management organisations accentuated the social and cultural dimension of sustainability as contemporary frames of reference for Nordic coastal tourism. Conversely, they were more versed with the economic and ecological dimensions. The study identified an urgent need for engagement between academic and non-academic partners to support constant interaction between didactics and professional practice. Adult learners can benefit from micro-credentials and open badges by validating their work-based learning in sustainable development. A blended learning approach may be useful in accommodating application of learners’ changed perspectives at work and engaging in transformative learning.