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Book Reviews

John Tribe's paper 'Education for Ethical Tourism Action' (10 (4), 2002) proposes an action-oriented ethical tourism curriculum based on Aristotle's notion of phronesis, aimed at developing a disposition towards 'good' action rather than 'correct' action. This paper investigates the implications of Tribe's paper for the pedagogy and practice of sustainable tourism. Drawing upon Aristotle, it is argued that principles are an important guide to developing and exercising phronesis (practical wisdom) for living a good life, and for the practice of sustainable tourism. The paper also examines issues related to theoretical or scientific knowledge (episteme) and skill development (techne), and argues for a praxis-oriented curriculum that incorporates: (1) knowledge of sustainable-tourism principles, and (2) practice in which learned principles and phronesis (practical wisdom) constitutively guide tourism action and good conduct. The study also suggests that scholars and practitioners need to be more proactive and cognisant of the telos (purpose) and good of various tourism activities and curricula, for the individual and for the destination. Especially lacking in the study of sustainable tourism is discussion of the development of virtues and character for a good life in and through tourism. Virtue ethics offers potential for supplementing existing theories of rightness and obligation in sustainable tourism, and for conceptualising the meaning of 'good tourism'.     

Interpreting the Past,Writing the Future

Using the metaphor of Homer's Odyssey, this paper provides a characterization of the development of interpretive consumer research. Initially this development is shown to have been circumscribed by the machinations of positivism. However, following the disruptive influences of postmodernism/post-structuralism, issues such as methodological pluralism, reflexivity and representation are considered to signify the way forward to an interpretive consumer research with confidence in its axioms.     

"Babies Cost Less at Tesco"

Through research undertaken in several child adoption agencies, the authors examine the ethical consequences of the use of marketing techniques in the child adoption process within England and Wales.

Increasingly child adoption organisations and social work professionals are made accountable via the language of customer service and performance measurements. The use of commercial techniques such as marketing is justified on utilitarian grounds. However, any utilisation of marketing within the child adoption process is forced to ensure that the child is not de-centred. Here, the authors argue, there are tensions between the humanitarian project that is child adoption, and the unease produced by viewing the child as human 'product'. The use of marketing in child adoption raises issues related to the objectification and commodification of the child and prospective adopters. Within child adoption it is assumed that we must engage with the child as 'face' (Bauman 1995). But will these assumptions stand the encroachment of marketing techniques into this very sensitive area?     

What Is and What Is Not Social Marketing: The Challenge of Reviewing the Evidence

This paper describes our experience in undertaking a review of the effectiveness of using social marketing to tackle nutrition problems. One of the biggest challenges was identifying programmes which could be genuinely defined as 'social marketing'. Here we describe how we applied and tested a framework for identifying and assessing legitimate social marketing research. Implications for both social marketing theory and practice are discussed.     

Representations of Hosts in Travel Writing: The Guardian Travel Section

In this paper, we examine representations of hosts to tourist destinations covered in journalistic travel reports published in the Travel Section of the Saturday edition of the British broadsheet newspaper The Guardian in 1997. Methodologically, the paper is anchored within the constructionist view of discourse, i.e. we assume that in the linguistic representation of people, places, or events, discursive choices not only describe the reality but also construct its ideologically preferred version. We demonstrate that in the travel reports examined here, local people tend to be represented in three principal categories: (1) homogeneous ethnic or social group; (2) observed bearers of the 'national' or 'community' characteristics; or (3) as 'featureless' helpers to the travellers. Arguing that these representations are constitutive of Foucauldian regimes of truth we propose that the reports are a means of constructing a known and tamed reality that is safe for the readers/prospective tourists to travel to.     

Influences on ethical and socially responsible shopping: evidence from the UK grocery sector

Given the growing importance of ethical and socially responsible (ESR) issues in retailing, this research uses empirical evidence from the UK grocery sector to investigate the significance of these factors on shoppers' store and product choice decisions. A number of different ESR shopping motivations are identified including global and local issues in store decisions, together with product heritage, animal and human rights, and advertising and communications issues in product decisions. Results suggest that both ESR and other influences are important in explaining shopping intentions, and that these vary according to shopping occasion, particularly whether the shopper is undertaking a main or top-up shop. Whilst in some circumstances ESR motives remain paramount to the decision, in others shoppers are prepared to forgo some element of this to overcome situational imperatives. Customer service, product quality and promotions are important motivators of shoppers even when they are looking for ethical and socially responsible solutions. Implications for retailers and research, the limitations of the study, and directions for future investigation are presented.     

Travel and Aspects of Societal Structure: A Comparison of India and the United States

Most theoretical studies in tourism depend on the methods of illustrative comparison and case study. The limitations of the case study approach have lately been discussed. Like the method of illustrative comparison, it does not allow deductive development of theory. To rectify this situation, and to overcome the lacunae in methodology that Dann et al. (1988) and Nash (1996) complain about, the method of formal or systematic comparison can be brought to bear on tourism in various societies. In such a study, this paper compares two large, complex societies - India and the USA - and looks at the ramifications of travel. It analyses the institutionalisation of travel in a modern (US) and a modernising (Indian) society, including aspects of societal structure that are reflected in the language, and debates whether MacCannell's (1989) argument that tourism is a 'modern ritual' can be borne out. The paper concludes by looking at some of the theoretical implications and discussing the practical implications of the study for development of tourism in India.