ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the ethical issues of consumer behaviour, and frames them in relation to one of the key challenges of travel and tourism of our current times: that travel causes both positive and negative impacts. The first section reviews ethical theory, defining ethical consumption and ethical consumerism and outlining the nature of the ethical business and the ethical consumer. The second section reviews the role of society’s different actors in ethically responsible behaviour and outlines reasons for co-operative systems failing to meet a shared responsibility. The final section provides an overview of ethical tourism and the ethical tourist and determines the barriers to change which impede responsible consumer behaviour.
