Ethical tourism: An opportunity for competitive advantage? Clare Weeden Received (in revised form): 23rd April, 2001 Anonymously refereed paper University of Brighton, School of Service Management, 49 Darley Road, Eastbourne BN20 7UR, UK Tel: 44 (0) 1273 643 620; Fax: 44 (0) 1273 643 619; E-mail: c.h.weeden@bton.ac.uk Clare Weeden is a lecturer in the School of Service Management at the University of Bright- on. Her research interests focus on consumer psychology and ethical decision making, espe- cially the consumer's relationship with ethical products, not just in tourism but also within the wider management context of business morality. ABSTRACT KEYWORDS: specialist tour operators, ethi- cal tourism, consumer behaviour, competi- tive advantage, price opportunities 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 pro- ducts. 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' per- ceptions of consumer demand for ethical holidays and determine the essential attributes for ethical operators in this specialist ®eld. Conclusions will be drawn as to whether specialist operators provid- ing ethical tourism believe they can gain competi- tive advantage at a premium price. INTRODUCTION The tourism industry is a diverse 3 and in- creasingly successful industry whose growth shows no sign of abating. During 2000 more than 698 million people spent at least one night in a foreign country, and with interna- tional tourism growing by 7.4 per cent in 2000, it is forecast that tourism will produce 1 billion travellers by 2010 and more than 1.5 billion travellers by 2020 Ð in effect, almost doubling in the next 20 years. 4 As tourism is the world's largest and most im- portant industry 5 the millions of international tourists travelling around the world 6 each year have an inevitable impact upon the destination countries of the world. The UK holiday market is ®ercely com- petitive, 7 with more than 29 million people travelling overseas for their annual holiday from the UK each year. 8 The UK tour operations industry operates within an oligo- polistic market structure, with 12 main- stream tour operators producing package holidays for the mass market. This sector accounts for 90 per cent of the total UK overseas inclusive holiday market, 9 while approximately 1,500 `micro-operators' 10 or SMEs serve the remaining 10 per cent of the outbound market. Mainstream operators sustain their compe- titive position through selling a high volume of low-priced holidays, and generate low margins, typically 2±3 per cent. 11 These low margins are unsustainable for SMEs, and producers who sell a smaller volume of high- Page 141 Journal of Vacation Marketing Volume 8 Number 2 Journal of Vacation Marketing Vol. 8 No. 2, 2001, pp. 141±153, & Henry Stewart Publications, 1356-7667