Ethical tourism: An opportunity for competitive advantage?

As an industry, tourism is considered the world's largest and most important,1 each year carrying millions of international travellers around the world.2 The UK tour operations industry is dominated by mainstream operators offering a high volume of low-priced holidays. Alongside the mass market exists a specialist operator industry that, in order to sustain competitiveness, offers niche products. One such product, ethical tourism, has grown in prominence over the past decade, and this paper seeks to establish whether specialist tour operators consider ethical tourism to be niche market opportunity. It will explore the concept of ethical tourism, examine specialist operators' perceptions of consumer demand for ethical holidays and determine the essential attributes for ethical operators in this specialist field. Conclusions will be drawn as to whether specialist operators providing ethical tourism believe they can gain competitive advantage at a premium price.