Ethical implications of tourism in developing countries
Emily McIntyre
3378148
September 26, 2006
TREN 3P12
Sonya Graci
Introduction:
Tourism is instituted in ad hoc fashion, with little regard to appropriate socio-ecological planning. This paper outlines the ethical implications of tourism in terms of the social and political, environmental and economical issues in developing countries. All resolutions for these implications, follow the Global Code of Ethics for Tourism (GCET) which is a set of principles whose purpose is to guide stakeholders in tourism development: central and local governments, local communities, the tourism industry and its professionals, as well as visitors both international and local (UNWTO, n.d.).
Background on the industry:
In general, tourism occurs in developing countries, because businesses have adopted a development-oriented perspective. The emphasis is on development (use) in order to reach optimal economic gain by extractive use of resources rather than protection and preservation (Fennell, 2002). There has been a trend in humans, to take on the role of being bad rules, by trying to exploit and dominate for short-term personal gain at any expense (Peterson, 1996). It is a harsh reality that there are a significant lack of resources for effective management of visitors and the environment (Fennell, 2002). Therefore, resource management is a critical issue that needs to be dealt with, and not defined by the primary stakeholder, the industries, but rather shared interests.
Functional management aspects:
Social & Political:
There are many social and political implications as to how tourism operations are run in developing countries. There are many tourism operations that ignore the interests of the local community and do not allow them to partake in the decisions of any
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