The Ethics of Tourism

Book excerpt: There are increasingly strident calls from many sectors of society for the tourism industry, the world’s largest industry, to adopt a more ethical approach to the way it does business. In particular there has been an emphasis placed on the need for a more ethical approach to the way the tourism industry interacts with consumers, the environment, with indigenous peoples, those in poverty, and those in destinations suffering human rights abuses. This book introduces students to the important topic of tourism ethics and illustrates how ethical principles and theory can be applied to address contemporary tourism industry issues. A critical role of the book is to highlight the ethical challenges in the tourism industry and to situate tourism ethics within wider contemporary discussions of ethics in general. Integrating theory and practice the book analyses a broad range of topical and relevant tourism ethical issues from the urgent ‘big-picture’ problems facing the industry as a whole (e.g. air travel and global warming) to more micro-scale everyday issues that may face individual tourism operators, or indeed, individual tourists. The book applies relevant ethical frameworks to each issue, addressing a range of ethical approaches to provide the reader with a firm grounding of applied ethics, from first principles. International case studies with reflective questions at the end are integrated throughout to provide readers with valuable insight into real world ethical dilemmas, encouraging critical analysis of tourism ethical issues as well as ethically determined decisions. Discussion questions and annotated further reading are included to aid further understanding. The Ethics of Tourism: Critical and Applied Perspectives is essential reading for all Tourism students globally.