The role of e-learning applications within the tourism sector

Abstract

Since the beginning of the Internet, the number of e-learning courses has increased year after year, offering new solutions – and new challenges – for distance teaching/learning within schools and universities as well as outside of them. Learners take advantage of e-learning because it gives them the opportunity to organize their time and overcome distance barriers when accessing to their virtual classrooms. E-learning has fostered a new paradigm for teaching and learning where technologies offer alternative ways to learn and to share and transfer knowledge. In the knowledge economy, education and training have also become an important asset for professionals and companies in becoming more competitive, where e-learning is increasingly used to teach new professionals and to train current employees, improving their professional development. Not surprisingly, tourism academic curricula and tourism organizations use e-learning platforms in training and educating tourism professionals.