WORK BASED HIGHER LEARNING FOR THE DANISH TOURISM SECTOR

The paper reports on an investigation of the business needs for work-based higher learning in the Danish tourism sector and the match with the supply of higher education, emphasizing opportunities for and barriers to work based learning (WBL) in the Danish university system. The Danish tourism sector’s need for development through further and higher education of employees is widely recognized, while Danish higher education is challenged to develop a more demand-led approach. The research consists of completed empirical studies and literature review on Danish tourism and Danish higher education programs for tourism. This is the basis for reflexive analysis of how demand and supply for higher education can be aligned in the sector. The research focuses on the role of WBL as a way to meet the need for flexible competence building. Special emphasis is put on innovation and environmental management programs and competence building targeted at Danish tourism. The paper discusses the challenges of WBL for the Danish university system in this regard. The research and analysis is based on a literature review, in-depth semi structured interviews and e-survey among 12 employers in the Danish tourism sector and in-depth semi-structured interviews with university staff and management of one Danish university. The research has taken place in a comparative European context of the WBLQUAL lifelong learning project on WBL, which is applied to the Danish tourism sector.Flexible WBL programs are found to be suitable for the tourism industry and need to be developed within the higher education institutions in Denmark. Keyword s:Work based learning, higher education, tourism, innovation, environmental management.