Responsible Tourist Behaviour

Clare Weeden

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781136996276
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Consumer Behaviour
• Index: Business

What is important to ethical consumers when thinking about going on holiday and how do they incorporate their lifestyle choices into these holidays? What values inform their lifestyles and how do they satisfy these values on holiday? Do ethical consumers automatically become ethical tourists or is the situation a little more complex than this?

In an attempt to answer these questions, this book explores:

• The ethical dilemmas associated with tourism
• The concerns and motivations of ethical consumers on holiday
• The role and importance of values in holiday decision-making

This book offers a highly original contribution to the debate surrounding the demand for ethical and responsible holidays. It explores the consumption concerns of ethical consumers and their motivational values, and offers a detailed examination of how they manage these values on holiday. This book offers a new and challenging perspective to the study of responsible tourism by providing a unique empirical insight into how responsible tourists incorporate their norms and values into their holiday decisions. The text will be of interest to undergraduates, postgraduates and tutors on courses that have tourism and the tourist at their centre, and to academics in other disciplines such as marketing and consumer behaviour. It will also be highly relevant to the global tourism industry.

1 Introduction

Introduction

This chapter sets the context for the book by detailing the key success indicators associated with the global tourism industry. It continues with an evaluation of concerns over the potentially negative impact of international and domestic leisure trips and considers the links between calls for sustainable development and its manifestation within tourism. The chapter explains some of the key products and also approaches that have been offered as alternatives to mass tourism before examining the provenance of responsible tourism. The chapter concludes with a brief look at the challenges facing those seeking to increase consumer demand for responsible holidays.

The success of tourism?

Each year millions of people travel, take holidays and pursue leisure experiences in search of self-discovery, learning and relaxation. Because such aspirations have become increasingly important and are often regarded as essential to modern living (Smith and Duffy 2003), demand for leisure travel has grown exponentially these past 60 years. This trend looks set to continue despite ongoing political upheaval and global environmental challenge. The desire to experience new places, to meet different people and to enjoy contrasting environments is not new; people have travelled for centuries, and will continue to do so for many more. What is different in the 21st century, and something that represents a significant future challenge, derives from the vast number of journeys being taken.

There are now more than 4.8 billion international and domestic trips taken each year (UNWTO 2012a). Whilst impressive, this figure pales in comparison with future estimates: in conjunction with a rapidly expanding global population and an equally notable increase in the number of tourists from the BRIC countries of Brazil, Russia, India and China, forecasts indicate more than 1.8 billion international arrivals and more than 7 billion domestic leisure journeys will be recorded annually by 2030 (UNWTO 2011; UNWTO 2012b). While disquiet is expressed over the impacts of such high numbers of people travelling the world, most notably the detrimental effect on the environment, the financial benefit accruing to the global economy of such a popular leisure and business activity is immensely persuasive for those keen to see tourism continue to succeed. Indeed, spending on travel and tourism in 2013 is set to exceed US$6 trillion, provide more than 9 per cent of global gross domestic product (GDP) and sustain 255 million jobs. Given the already noted increase in demand, these figures will likely rise to $10 trillion, 10 per cent of global GDP, and 328 million, or one in 10 jobs by 2022 (WTTC 2012). Taken at face value, these figures go some way to explain why tourism is often considered essential for income and development by a significant number of economies around the world.

However, while many have welcomed tourism's continual success, not everyone is happy with the pace and nature of its development, and not all stakeholders believe they benefit fairly from tourist expenditure. The complexity of the product and the multifaceted nature of its impact on society and business means that tourism can, and does, generate powerful emotion, and not just in those who participate in its activities. There are a number of reasons for this. First, tourism is undoubtedly capable of facilitating economic benefit if developed sustainably, but it also has the potential to reinforce social and economic inequalities because of a characteristic style of development that preferences high-volume, low-price tourism (Cleverdon and Kalisch 2000). Expansion and progress on these terms can result in excessive economic leakage with little long-term benefit to local, regional or national economies (Curtin and Busby 1999). This has prompted consternation and debate about tourism's ability to deliver a fair, equitable and socially just system (Carlisle 2010; Higgins-Desbiolles 2008; Wearing 2002).

A second problem concerns the natural environment. The scarcity of pristine environments, coupled with their attractiveness for tourism, prompts an inevitable tension between those who seek to conserve nature for its intrinsic value, those who need access to it for subsistence, and those who use the environment for tourism, leisure and recreation purposes. Leaving aside the essential needs of the global population regarding the production of food and access to clean water, and the local realities of such requirements in a world impacted by climate change, the tourism industry is by necessity financially dependent upon a high-quality environment in order to attract tourists. While there exist a few examples of successful sustainability projects involving tourism (Holden 2009), questions remain about the perceived unwillingness of practitioners to wholeheartedly protect the vital resources on which they depend.

It is not only the environment that is impacted through the production and consumption of tourism. A third problem concerns the long-term human cost associated with the phenomenon. Numerous case studies question the sector's ability to manage itself along ethical lines, especially when it concerns the impact on local communities (Andereck et al. 2005; Tosun 2002), the appropriation of culture and heritage for the purpose of tourism (Kirtsoglou and Theodossopoulos 2004), and the consequences for community cohesion of poor tourism planning and ineffective business practice (Honey and Gilpin 2009). While some commentators persist in arguing over the management implications of community attitudes for optimal tourist experiences (see Deery et al. 2012), more fundamental debates focus on the ethics of representation and commodification of indigenous peoples (Caton n.d., forthcoming; Saarinen and Niskala 2009), the disempowerment of local communities through international investment (Mbaiwa 2003), and the prevention of access to farmland and other critical resources as a consequence of conserving wildlife for tourism (Rutten 2002; Snyder and Sulle 2011).

Although this is not an exhaustive list of the ethical dilemmas inherent in the production and consumption of tourism, individually they act as reminders that the movement of people around the world for pleasure prompts unease over whether tourism might ever conform to socially just and equitable principles, particularly when it relies on people, culture and the environment for financial sustainability. While many of these resources are exchanged willingly for economic benefit, there are inevitably occasions when the consequences of such exchanges are borne not by the tourist, or the organisations supplying and selling the products and services, but by the people and culture being visited and by the natural environment. For these reasons alone, tourism must focus more on developing fair and cooperative relationships and depend less upon exploiting unequal power relations and fostering social practices that rely on an unjust appropriation of human and non-human capital.

Sustainable development in tourism

It is clear from this brief introduction that tourism presents several ethical issues. While these are deliberated further in Chapter 3, concern over the exploitative potential of tourism has long prompted demand for a more responsible approach to its production and consumption (Font and Ahjem 1998; Forsyth 1997; Hultsman 1995; Payne and Dimanche 1996). The 1970s and 1980s in particular evidenced much heated debate on this topic (see for example, Wheeller 1991), with discussion focusing on calls for a different approach to tourism (de Kadt 1979; Krippendorf 1987). The majority of these deliberations prompted demand for an ‘Alternative Tourism’, defined by Holden (1984, in de Kadt 1992: 51), as ‘a process which promotes a just form of travel between members of different communities. It seeks to achieve mutual understanding, solidarity and equity amongst participants’. While it is hard to deny the attractiveness of such an aspiration to all those involved in and impacted by tourism, the most difficult challenge concerns their physical embodiment – how would (and how does) ‘alternative’ tourism manifest itself in reality?

As yet, there is no definitive answer to this question even though more than 40 years have passed since ‘alternative tourism’ was first mooted as a sustainable approach to tourism (for early discussions see Britton and Clarke 1987; Butler 1990, 1992). One of the most influential catalysts in this was Krippendorf (1987: 105), whose vision for a ‘co-operative world in which each part is a centre, living at the expense of nobody else, in partnership with nature, in solidarity with future generations’, centred on a form of tourism for which the:

… common goal must be to develop and promote new forms of tourism, which will bring the greatest possible benefit to all the participants – travellers, the host population and the tourist business, without causing intolerable ecological and social damage.

(Krippendorf 1987: 106)

This call for a ‘new’ tourism was famously taken up by Poon (1993: 290–91), who argued:

The evils of tourism are mainly associated with the old ‘mass’ forms of tourism that prevailed during much of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. So overpowering has been the tendency toward mass tourism that, three decades ago, countries developing tourism had little choice but to go the mass tourism route – only to be host to tourism's backlash at a later date. Today, however, tourism destinations have a choice – the choice is new tourism.

The rhetoric that new tourism was ‘right’ and good, as opposed to mass tourism, which was ‘wrong’ and bad (Clarke 1997; Diamantis and Ladkin 1999), became a major focus of contention, especially for academics, who argued for many subsequent decades about the relative merits of a range of alternatives (for example, eco, soft, green or sensitive) that would provide the world with a ‘better’ type of tourism.

Significantly, tourism was not the only industry to be struggling with some of the negative consequences associated with it at this time. Global conversations, triggered by concern over the impact of material consumption, were also starting to question whether the planet could cope with rising populations and increasing industrialisation without a radical reformation of the West's attitude (and behaviour) towards mass consumption. These had been brought to wider public attention by Rachel Carson's Silent Spring (1962), which contained warnings about the over-use of pesticides and the damaging impact of chemical spraying on nature's sensitive ecosystems.

Credited with being the catalyst for a developing ecological awareness, and thus spawning the environmental movement, Carson's publication ultimately led to a significant shift in global policies, government legislation and public consciousness, about the importance of maintaining a healthy planet (Atwood 2012). While its legacy remains contentious for some (see McKie 2012), the message of environmental stewardship became the cornerstone of sustainable development (SD). In turn, SD was heralded as critical in the achievement of economic progress, through the alleviation of poverty and preservation of human rights (Meyer 2007).

Sustainable development

As defined by the World Commission on the Environment and Development, through the Brundtland Report (1987), sustainable development is a process of change:

in which the exploitation of resources, the direction of investment, the orientation of technological development, and institutional changes are made consistent with future as well as present needs.

(D'Amore 1993: 65)

Receiving enthusiastic support from governments, nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) and academics, as well as the wider public, the Brundtland Report was crucial in delivering the message that sustainable development should be an important consideration for the future of global tourism (Wheeller 1992). However, given that it was published in 1987, tourism and travel organisations were slow to incorporate the principles of SD within their development, operations and management activity. In fact, it was not until Agenda 21, which came out of the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development (the Earth Summit, Rio de Janeiro) that some decision makers accepted that they needed to move towards a sustainable future (Berry and Ladkin 1997). In order to pre-empt any further negative attention over the destructive potential of tourism development (see Richter 1983; Wilkinson 1992), the United Nations (UN) encouraged the World Tourism Organization (WTO, later UNWTO), to develop its Global Code of Ethics, Article One of which is set out below:

The understanding and promotion of the ethical values common to humanity, with an attitude of tolerance and respect for the diversity of religious, philosophical and moral beliefs, are both the foundation and consequence of responsible tourism. Stakeholders in tourism development and tourists themselves should observe the social and cultural traditions and practices of all peoples, including those of minorities and indigenous peoples and to recognize their worth.

(UNWTO 1999)

Having identified poverty as a key challenge to future global development, the UN published a set of eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The objectives of the MDGs were to help developing countries tackle issues like poverty, education, women's empowerment, maternal and child health, and the environment, in order to avoid what Sofield et al. (2004: 45) called, ‘the risk of increased marginalisation from the global economy’. Leaving aside criticism of this neo-liberal political agenda (see Higgins-Desbiolles 2008, for a critique of the UN's vision for global economic development), the UNWTO appropriated four of the goals – poverty reduction, gender equality, environmental sustainability and global partnerships – to encourage the perception that tourism could also be, ‘responsible, sustainable and universally accessible’ (UNWTO 2010: 4).

While the motivations of the UN embracing SD in tourism have been questioned (see Chok et al. 2007; Higgins-Desbiolles 2008; Lansing and de Vries 2007; Meyer 2007; Sharpley 2000), the extensive number of global, national and regional initiatives spawned by these initiatives cannot be denied. These have also been the focus of a considerable number of critiques, case studies and research projects (see for example, Ashley et al. 2001; Goodwin 2006; Hall 2007; Harrison 2008; Roe and Urquhart 2001; Scheyvens 2007; Spenceley 2008). One of the most prominent programmes was the Sustainable Tourism for Eliminating Poverty (ST-EP) programme, launched by the UN at the World Summit on Sustainable Development, which took place in Johannesburg, South Africa in 2002. This linked the UNWTO's sustainable tourism agenda with poverty alleviation, which, in conjunction with the Pro-Poor Alliance, set out to promote an approach to tourism in developing countries that could benefit the poor (Sofield et al. 2004).

Similarly, the International Task Force on Sustainable Tourism Development (ITF-STD) sought to embed sustainable tourism through the Green Passport Campaign (where tourists were offered green travel tips), and Hotel Energy Solutions (where European accommodation providers were encouraged to adopt energy-saving and renewable technologies). The ITF-STD was later replaced in 2011 by the Global Partnership for Sustainable Tourism (GPST), which has continued to support these two projects, in addition to furthering a set of objectives that focus largely on promoting action on climate change, environmental protection, good governance, poverty alleviation, sustainable management practice and the conservation of cultural heritage. Current members of the GPST include Fair Trade Tourism South Africa (FTTSA), the International Centre for Responsible Tourism (ICRT), the Institute for Tourism Research (INTOUR), Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA), the Rainforest Alliance, The International Ecotourism Society (TIES), Tourism Concern, and many governments including Brazil, China, Croatia, Madagascar and Serbia (GPST n.d.).

Within the private sector, the Tour Operator Initiative for Sustainable Tourism Development (TOI-STD) was developed in 2000 in collaboration with the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the UNWTO. Its objective is to encourage commercial travel companies to adopt sustainable practices, and its 15 members at the time of writing include Accor (France), Andes Nartura (Chile), Dynamic Tours (Morocco), Kuoni (Switzerland), Steppes Discovery (UK), TLB Destinations (Lebanon), and TUI Travel PLC (UK).

Moving from the macro to the micro level, there exist many (mostly environmental) certification schemes designed to educate and inform business and the public about sustainable holiday products. Examples of the more well-known of these are: Green Globe 21, a global benchmarking and certification package for travel and tourism; Green Key, an international eco-label for leisure that operates in more than 16 countries; and the Certificate for Sustainable Tourism, which encourages environmental practice in hotels in Costa Rica (see Jarvis et al. 2010). Additional schemes include Ecotourism Kenya, Ecotourism Australia, ST-EP, the Sus...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Routledge Advances in Tourism
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of illustrations
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Consumer decision making and tourist motivation
• 3 Ethical consumers and the responsible tourist
• 4 Values and ethical consumption
• 5 Responsible tourists in their own words
• 6 What values tell us about responsible tourists
• 7 Marketing responsible tourism
• 8 Concluding thoughts
• Bibliography
• Index