Travel Professors: a YouTube channel about tourism education & research

Tolkach, Denis;Pratt, Stephen

Abstract

COVID-19 pandemic has had an immense impact on various aspects of life including tourism, education, and research. Educators increasingly engage with various online platforms transforming education, including YouTube. YouTube has been widely used for blended learning, online education, and for popularisation of research for several years prior to the COVID-19 outbreak. However, the use of YouTube in tourism academia has been lagging. One example is the Travel Professors YouTube channel (http://www.youtube.com/c/TravelProfessors). It provides short videos filmed on location about various tourism-related topics. It both aims to popularise tourism research and be a useful reference for in-class and online learning. The present paper provides a detailed analysis of this YouTube channel over four years combining descriptive statistics, content analysis of reviews, and the creators' reflection. Opportunities and challenges in utilising YouTube in tourism education are demonstrated. Suggestions and recommendations for tourism academics on becoming YouTube creators are provided.

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Journal of Hospitality, Leisure, Sport and Tourism Education

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1473-8376

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Elsevier

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DOI

10.1016/j.jhlste.2021.100307