Responsible Tourism as a Strategy for Implementing Transformative Education for Global Citizenship

This article provides an overview of the educational underpinnings of responsible tourism with the aim of promoting transformative education for Sustainable Development and Global Citizenship. After a brief outline of the theoretical and historical framework surrounding the notion of transformative education in relation to Global Citizenship Education and education for Sustainable Development, this paper highlights the role of responsible tourism as an informal educational practice. Some examples of transnational educational tourism for Global Citizenship Education are then provided and analysed. A special focus is placed on the case of international volunteer tourism (also defined as “voluntourism”), stressing its opportunities and limits. The paper concludes by describing the pedagogical pre-conditions for sustainable tourism to contribute to global citizenship education, depending on the type of education, tourism, and global citizenship triggered when designing educational tourism programmes.