IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/4733.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Environmental responsibility and business regulation: the case of sustainable tourism

Author

Listed:
  • Forsyth, Tim

Abstract

This paper adds to the growing literature within geography on environmental regulation of business activities. The adoption of voluntary practices of environmental responsibility is discussed as a form of environmental regulation, and then applied to tourism using a survey of 69 companies and institutions in the UK outgoing tourism industry. Results indicate that business has adopted a wide range of practices, but considers them to be weak regulatory instruments because ultimate responsibility for change lies with host governments via legislation. However, environmental protection may enhance business performance if voluntary practices could differentiate mass-market holiday packages and allow companies to compete on more than price alone. This paper, therefore, supports research from other industries which states that environmental practices may lead to commercial advantage if adopted proactively rather than in response to market demand for ethical or 'green' products. However, change may be accelerated by labelling 'green' or 'sustainable' tourism as 'quality' tourism, and by acknowledging that populist market demand may lead to stereotypical approaches to minorities or ecotourism not helpful to equitable development. Future debate should focus on common ground between regulators and business, and on shared responsibility for excluding 'free-rider' companies not willing to adopt practices.

Suggested Citation

  • Forsyth, Tim, 1997. "Environmental responsibility and business regulation: the case of sustainable tourism," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 4733, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
  • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:4733
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/4733/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Leszek Butowski, 2021. "Sustainable Tourism: A Human-Centered Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(4), pages 1-13, February.
    2. Leonardo Garavito (Editor) & Fredy Ochoa (Editores), 2016. "Debates contemporáneos sobre el turismo tomo I. Nuevos retos del turismo: casos de estudio sobre los vínculos entre la gobernanza, el desarrollo y la sostenibilidad," Books, Universidad Externado de Colombia, Facultad de Administración de Empresas Turísticas y Hoteleras, number 21, April.
    3. Lisheng Weng & Bao-Jie He & Lina Liu & Chenxi Li & Xin Zhang, 2019. "Sustainability Assessment of Cultural Heritage Tourism: Case Study of Pingyao Ancient City in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(5), pages 1-16, March.
    4. Cudny Waldemar & Natalia Dajer, 2023. "Natural Resources and Sustainable Tourism: Opportunities in Kroczyce Commune, Poland," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(1), pages 1-28, December.
    5. Philip R. Walsh & Rachel Dodds & Julianna Priskin & Jonathon Day & Oxana Belozerova, 2021. "The Corporate Responsibility Paradox: A Multi-National Investigation of Business Traveller Attitudes and Their Sustainable Travel Behaviour," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(8), pages 1-20, April.
    6. PAWLICZ, Adam, 2014. "Impact Of Civil Society Development On Self-Regulation. European Hotel Market Case," Academica Science Journal, Economica Series, Dimitrie Cantemir University, Faculty of Economical Science, vol. 1(4), pages 3-10, June.
    7. Amal Alnamrouti & Husam Rjoub & Hale Ozgit, 2022. "Do Strategic Human Resources and Artificial Intelligence Help to Make Organisations More Sustainable? Evidence from Non-Governmental Organisations," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(12), pages 1-23, June.
    8. Cathrine Linnes & Jerome Agrusa & Giulio Ronzoni & Joseph Lema, 2022. "What Tourists Want, a Sustainable Paradise," Tourism and Hospitality, MDPI, vol. 3(1), pages 1-20, February.
    9. Jon Vernon & Stephen Essex & David Pinder & Kaja Curry, 2003. "The ‘greening’ of tourism micro‐businesses: outcomes of focus group investigations in South East Cornwall," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 12(1), pages 49-69, January.
    10. Bogdan Włodarczyk & Waldemar Cudny, 2022. "Individual Low-Cost Travel as a Route to Tourism Sustainability," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(17), pages 1-21, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Business and environment; sustainable tourism; environmental responsibility; marketing; self regulation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • N0 - Economic History - - General
    • R14 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Land Use Patterns
    • J01 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General - - - Labor Economics: General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:4733. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: LSERO Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.