The global higher education environment, and within this tourism, hospitality and events (TH&E) education, will be remarkably different in five, 10 or 20 years’ time. Although timelines differ from nation to nation, as a relatively new area of teaching and research, TH&E education expanded rapidly in the 1980s and 1990s within the expanding higher education systems and off the back of massive growth in tourism and hospitality service sectors. Vocationalism stood at the centre of the early provision but as the subject areas expanded and matured, as new academics entered the field and as new research extended the knowledge base so other concerns of educators became more prominent, captured by Tribe’s idea of the Philosophic Practitioner.