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In March 2020, we opened our classrooms to students, parents, and the world. Zoom and Google Meet became the new spaces to gather as regular check-ins with students and families became the norm. Educators served students through a two-way window where we previously only saw them in the school setting and now with the use of technology, could literally see into their homes. It is evident to many that inequities exist among the students and families that we serve, and our efforts to care them focused on social-emotional learning and supporting their well-being. While many see the challenges that the pandemic brought, there were also many opportunities that came about, including the use of core values which helped guide us through uncertainty. The need for human connection became a clear factor when we were not able to be together physically. Connecting with students and families on an authentic, deeper level, shifted how we think about school leadership and improving schools. The mindset transitioning to our ability to teach in schools and communities, not just in a physical classroom, became one of our guiding principles. Across the United States, school districts’ instructional directives varied greatly. In our district, leaders came together to create virtual lessons to be available for all students. Our focus was to support educational equity and to give students opportunities to engage with grade level curriculum at any time of day (or night).

This chapter explores the potential for and value of imagining a humanist paradigm for tourism studies. It explores how the idea of a “paradigm” in tourism can be conceptualized, arguing that dominant thoughtlines in other fields regarding the meaning of a paradigm are not sufficient for making sense of this idea in the context of tourism studies. The chapter introduces humanism as a philosophical position in the academy and as a lived cultural practice, explores examples of extant work in tourism studies that might be seen to provide the seeds of a humanist paradigm, and offers reflections on the value of imagining such a paradigm for our field.

Previous work has conceptually explored the value of the humanities for tourism education and has considered the pressures that likely serve as barriers to its greater inclusion in curricula. This chapter moves the debate from the conceptual level to the ground, reporting the results of a survey of tourism educators with regard to the role of the humanities in the programs in which they teach. The study explores the prevalence of the humanities as primary and supporting course content at the undergraduate and graduate levels, sheds light on barriers faculty members identify for incorporating more humanities content into their curricula, and offers examples of creative ways some educators are currently engaging with such content.

This article explores the little understood practice of school interior design and the manner in which school interiors give form to ideas about what the work of children and teachers could and should look like. Its focus is a perceived link between the concepts of school work made material in the design of new twenty‐first century learning environments and those expressed in the design of Modernist progressive schools such as Richard Neutra’s Corona Ave, Elementary School, California. The article’s impetus comes from current interest in the inter‐relationship between the design of physical learning environments and pedagogy reform as governments in Australia and internationally, work to transform teaching and learning practices through innovative school building and refurbishment projects. Government campaigns, for example the UK’s Schools for the Future Program and Australia’s Victorian Schools Plan, use a promotional rhetoric that calls for the final dismantling of the cellular classroom with its industrial model of work so that ‘different pedagogical approaches and the different ways that children learn [can] be represented in the design of new learning environments’, in buildings and interiors designed to support contemporary constructivist‐inspired pedagogies.

This chapter introduces a metaphor—the house—and applies Habermas’ philosophy to examine the environment where knowledge production takes place. The analysis shows the dominance of “the systemic paradigm,” which is characterized by increased bureaucratization and commercialization. This paradigm has severe consequences for two core features of universities: the open-ended search for deeper understanding and the principle of autonomy. The chapter advances the idea of reclaiming the political dimension of the epistemic endeavor and presents a series of initiatives which help to advance tourism scholarship by non-conforming to the steering conditions of this paradigm and instead reclaiming the personal and subjective; promoting multiple knowledges; and building alternative platforms of knowledge production, cooperation, and dissemination.

This chapter explains the background of the book and begins with an introduction of Jafar Jafari’s tremendous contribution to tourism knowledge creation and education. This is followed by a report on the content analysis of 573 tourism education related articles published in the past 10 years. Results indicated the need for philosophical discussion about the nature of tourism education and the popularity of teaching and learning approaches as a research topic. The two main sections of this book, namely philosophical issues in tourism education and experiential/active learning in tourism education, fit into these two identified issues. A synopsis of each chapter is provided next; and future directions for tourism education research are suggested.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the experience of visitors with the Janadriyah festival.

An on-site intercept survey was conducted among a random sample of visitors of the festival. The survey was conducted by two field researchers between February 10 and February 25, 2014. A self-administered questionnaire was distributed only to those who agreed to respond to the survey. Out of 200 questionnaires distributed, 28 were incomplete and thus eliminated from the study. As a result, 172 questionnaires were accepted for the purpose of final analysis, representing a response rate of 86 percent.

There is a statistically significant contribution for both the first motivation (I participate in the Janadriyah festival to increase my cultural knowledge) and the fifth one (I participate in the Janadriyah festival to see new and different things and to enjoy a unique atmosphere). There is a statistically significant relationship between the most of services provided and the level of satisfaction. As well as, there is a statistically significant relationship between the perception and the level of satisfaction, also with the word of mouth communication. Finally, the results shown that behavioral intention had a positive influence on word of mouth communication.

There were time limits to this study as the research was conducted during the organization of the Janadriyah festival during its 26th session (February-March 2014).The research was also limited by place as it was conducted at the capital of Saudi Arabia, Janadriyah province.

The model of the study could be applied in similar studies for different festivals all over the world.

Increasing the promotional efforts to attract more visitors from different regions in the world. As it is observed that the vast majority of participants in the Janadriyah festival are local residents. In addition, there is a need to organize training programs to all staff participating in the organization of the festival supervised by academics and professionals. Organizing seminars during the festival in order to increase the awareness of local residents with importance of the cultural heritage and how to keep it. And at the end, the program of the festival has to be updated from one session to another in order to attract more attendees.

The integrated model of the study represent an added value to the research in the field of tourism festivals.