Coca-cola, the Ford Mondeo, the Big Mac are all examples of globally standardised products. Globalisation has become an established concept which explains a number of political, sociological, environmental and economic trends that are taking place on a worldwide scale. The tourism industry is part of this process.

Tourism education, the human resource development arm of the tourism industry, faces the challenge of adequately preparing graduates to compete and co-operate in this changing global environment. A global tourism curriculum may seem an attractive and inevitable prospect for tourism educators in the North and South operating in this global market place. Certainly for the South, with scarce resources and limited funds to design programmes, implementing existing models of tourism education from the North is an inexpensive option (Echtner, 1995; Theuns and Go, 1992). However, given the disparities in the economic, technological and socio-cultural conditions of the North and the South, a global (particularly a North dominated) tourism curriculum may be inappropriate.

This paper seeks to examine three main issues. Firstly, the extent of globalisation in tourism education is explored. Secondly, the benefits and problems of global tourism education are discussed followed by the implications of this analysis for curriculum planning in the South. The discussion reveals that a global tourism curriculum is not the most appropriate response for tourism education in this global environment.