Embedded research: a pragmatic design for contextual learning – from fieldtrip to fieldwork to field research in Australasia

Fieldwork components in a tourism curriculum hardly need justification. Recognizing the multiple attractive dimensions of such ‘escapades’, such as getting away from school and seeing other landscapes, the purely educational benefits remain in principle undisputed by most, if not all, tourism programmes. In both bachelor and Tourism Destination Management (TDM) Master’s programmes at the NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences, in the Netherlands, the fieldwork component has become both a pivot and a pillar, feeding the overall tourism curriculum, both in content and design.