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Date Submitted: 08/15/2011 02:20 AM
International Marketing Review 12,4 38
Tourism marketing ethics: an introduction
Marion Wheeler
Lee Valley Regional Park, Enfield, UK
Tourism is one of the world’s largest industries but little attention has been focused on ethical marketing of the tourism product. This article considers the nature of the tourism product, paradoxes which occur with its development, the role that ethical marketing can play in the marketing of the tourism product and “green” tourism as an example of the industry’s response to ethical considerations. Literature review Many authors in the tourism area have considered the phenomena of tourism marketing, (Haywood, 1990; Middleton, 1988) but few have related tourism marketing to the concept of ethics. The trend has been to look at definitional aspects of tourism marketing which has been followed by prescription towards the management process. The subject has been grounded in an initial definition which logically leads to particular concepts and ultimately a marketing definition. The flow of information is circular and continuous. The definition emanates out of practice and knowledge built on by the application of marketing in tourism management situations, (Gilbert, 1989; Holloway and Plant, 1988; Middleton, 1988). On the other side of the equation, those who have considered marketing ethics have tended not to relate the ideas and practices to the tourism industry. Murphy and Laczniak (1981) consider marketing as being the functional area within business most often cited with ethical abuse. This is related to the boundary-spanning role of marketing which inherently involves assimilating the needs of a diverse number of publics. This coupled with the fact that marketers’ actions are far more visible that other occupations makes them more susceptible to criticism. Chonko and Hunt (1985) and Dubinsky and Loken (1989) related the issue of marketing ethics to the marketing professional’s relationship with other parties in the exchange...