Abstract
Over the last forty years, education related to tourism has become established as a notable and distinct part of the repertoire of higher education. It now has a community of scholars, a body of research, journals and books and many national and international organisations. Numbers of students taking up tourism programmes has also been growing. All this suggests that the tourism academic community should feel fairly confident about their position. This is not entirely the case. This paper explores the uncertainties of tourism in higher education, both the teething problems associated with the recognition of a new area of study as well as the more fundamental issues related to the nature of tourism knowledge.