Sidore Lecture: Megan Epler Wood

The Future of Sustainable Tourism Education  

Tourism is 10% of the global economy and faces many challenges to its business model as climate change accelerates, and yet sustainable tourism is rarely a part of academic curricula worldwide.  The UNWTO has found that 80% of all tourism education globally is focused on hospitality and hotel management and investment, while the other sectors of the industry, including digital online booking engines, cruise lines, airports and aviation, and destinations are not included. Megan Epler Wood wrote a textbook, Sustainable Tourism on a Finite Planet in 2017 to cover all tourism sectors and went on to create a global self-paced, online course, Sustainable Tourism Destination Management with eCornell in 2022 to increase global capacity to manage tourism locally using scientific sustainability principles.   In this Sidore Lecture, Megan discusses her accomplishments and setbacks in helping to create a new global system for sustainable tourism education. 

Megan Epler Wood is an academic and consultant on questions of managing sustainable tourism worldwide.  She is the Managing Director of the Sustainable Tourism Asset Management Program (STAMP) at Cornell University in the Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise at the SC Johnson College of Business.  She was the lead author of the 2019 report Destinations at Risk; The Invisible Burden of Tourism.  Her 2017 book, Sustainable Tourism on a Finite Planet is used as a text worldwide.  She leads the international consulting firm EplerWood International (EWI) to design sustainable tourism development projects working in 40 countries and was the Founder and President of The International Ecotourism Society 1990-2002. 

This event is free, however it is ticketed. Tickets can be collected at the Box Office or online at the link below.