Tourism, as a phenomenon, has featured quite promising figures throughout the world and seems to be able to contribute to the social, cultural, and sustainable development of tourist-oriented places. However, it involves complex inter and co-relations with other fields, which provokes great tensions. One of these nodes of tension is caused by the proximity with other productive sectors of the educational field between the 70's and the 90's, as the latter demanded highly qualified, graduated professionals, which, as far as tourism is concerned, caused the creation and the progressive development, in Brazil, of degree courses in such specialty. This work is focused on some contradictory aspects regarding this environment, assessing national and local (Rio de Janeiro) competitive advantages and disadvantages as tourist destinations. The research was based on the interviewing of professors and University-level course coordinators, and it registers, in an undeniably tourist state, the tendencies in the universities that lead in the formation of this new tourism professional as an agent capable of intervening in reality.