Ana María Munar is a political scientist and gained her PhD in Business and Economics from the University of the Balearic Islands (Spain). She is a researcher and programme designer at CEUS School of Business, Denmark and her research interests include tourism theory; globalization theory; European education policy; and trends in higher education. She has published two books on higher education and several other publications on globalization and tourism. Vol. 6, No. 2. ISSN: 1473-8376 www.heacademy.ac.uk/hlst/resources/johlste ACADEMIC PAPER Is the Bologna Process Globalizing Tourism Education? Ana María Munar (amm@ceu.dk) CEUS School of Business, Vestensborg Allé 78, 4800 Nykøbing Falster, Denmark DOI:10.3794/johlste.62.164 Journal of Hospitality, Leisure, Sport and Tourism Education Abstract This paper examines the Bologna process from the perspective of globalization theories and analyses its impacts on the future of tourism education. The study showed that Bologna has important impacts on both tourism research and scholarship in Europe. It illustrates how it enhances the globalization of European higher education. The tools of Bologna structure involve a standardisation process that can help to solve the problem of fragmentation in tourism scholarship and may further develop globalization processes worldwide. Finally, the study argues that Bologna is a historical opportunity to use the systemic changes to gain a stronger image for tourism education. Keywords: Globalization theory; Tourism education; Bologna Process Introduction Tourism is the study of man (the tourist) away from his usual habitat, of the touristic apparatus and networks which respond to the needs, of the ordinary (home-based) and non-ordinary (tourism-based) worlds and their dialectic relationship (Jafari, 1987: 158). This conceptual frame helps our understanding of tourism as a whole. However, tourism could exist even if there were no scholars or researchers studying it. It is therefore not the ‘study of’ but the ‘existence of’ a determinate human activity that forms tourism. By referring to ‘the study of’, this definition reveals itself to be a more appropriate description not of tourism but of the tourism education sub-system within tourism. The activity of studying tourism is one part of the multiple human interactions related to tourism. The existence of the tourism education sub-system is only possible if the study of tourism is a reality. Tourism is