Give Students an Opportunity to Major in Sustainable Tourism/Operations

I love watching movies. If someone offered me a job as a movie critic, I would take it in a heartbeat. Last night I had an opportunity to see "Waiting for Superman." I highly recommend seeing this movie that provides a sobering look at the state of public education in the United States. While not touching on college level education, the movie did prompt me to wonder exactly how well our nation's hotel schools are doing at teaching sustainability, green design and green hotel operations. I have a list on my website of those hotel schools that offer at least one class related to sustainability. I ran through the list myself and noticed that just a few schools give students the opportunity to major in sustainable tourism or geotourism.

Perhaps those colleges and universities that have hotel schools, or that offer lodging or tourism related majors, just have not caught up with the times. Hotel companies are increasingly creating sustainability officer positions and they need qualified people to fill those jobs. I have interviewed many of those in sustainability positions and none of them have majored in sustainable tourism, green design or green hotel operations. Not to say they are not qualified for doing what they are doing, but if you were hiring someone to lead your green efforts, wouldn't it be nice to have a pool of candidates to choose from who have studied specifically what you have in mind for a position?

There are now more than 1,000 hotel projects registered for LEED certification, governments around the country are beginning to require green building and green travel, hotel companies are creating their own internal sustainability initiatives, the meetings industry is going green, and new products and technologies are transforming the way hotels operate. The more graduating students know about these trends, the faster they can contribute once they are hired.

It's time for all of our industry's leading hotel schools to offer majors in sustainability or related areas of expertise. Your thoughts?