Ethics and Employment Relations in Hospitality and Tourism Industry - Literature review Example

What ethical duties and responsibilities should the hospitality and tourism industry adopt as a of practice and why In context with the hospitality/ tourism Industry code of ethics, there are four ethical theories, which require extensive application in every aspect of practice. These four ethics include: Utilitarianism - The art of being useful thereby concentrating on the services, instead of being physically attractive in design and architecture of Industry. Kantianism - How to overcome our negative influences by adopting positive approach. Ethics of Justice - Treating all the employees with justice and equity. Virtue Ethics - Application of social virtual ethics in a global environment. Today the difficulties confronted by the hospitality Industry is due to the fact that despite setting a code of practice, guidelines are not followed which has transformed tourism industry into an era followed by adversity. In these circumstances where hospitality and tourism Industry is dying, it is difficult even to sustain these industries. According to Smith (2003) "there is wide acceptance that sustainability is one of the most important issues faced by the tourism industry. This acceptance is reflected in the proliferation of publications attempting to define the principles and practice of 'sustainable tourism' and to relate them to the concerns of 'sustainable development'". (Smith, 2003, p. 17) The term 'sustainable tourism' usually denotes the application of the more general concept of sustainable development to tourism as a specific economic sector. The ethical responsibilities towards code of practice enable the industry to acquire a critical role in protecting the vital needs of not only mainstream population but also the minorities that exist without political backup and economic support. Whether it is political extravaganza targeting masses or be it minorities, the role of legislation and codes should be based on the recognition of human rights and custom values. Hall & Richards (2000) while providing example of sustainable environment highlights the hospitality sector in which there are particular procedures of the installation of state-of-the-art energy-saving technology and waste-management which are followed by most of the hotels. In this context it is better for a hotel to survive thereby adopting 'sustainability'. For example a hotel can almost immediately have an impact on costs and may increase revenue if the organisation advertises its 'green credentials' and so attracts more eco-conscious clients. (Hall & Richards, 2000, p. 64) However, this may well lead to an increase in the level of aggregate demand and consequently an overall rise in total energy use and waste generation. Furthermore, the larger number of visitors puts unintended and increased pressure on the local infrastructure, services and environment, the effect of which is uncertain, especially with regard to the additional financial burden which is likely to fall not only on the public sector but the private (business) and personal sectors (perhaps receiving no direct benefit from tourism), because of the increased costs of mitigating the adverse effects of tourism, particularly dealing with waste. Besides characteristics, what matters within the context of tourism, are the characteristics of the natural, cultural and built environments of destinations that attract tourists towards them. All environments are different and have their own unique features, and what makes a particular type of environment attractive for tourism is a function of value judgements and fashions that exist in society. (Holden, 2003, p. 24) Code of Practice from Managerial Aspect The major constraints in today's tourism industry are those approaches, which are adopted by the managers, thereby influencing the hospitality of the product and labour markets, organisational status and structure, including size of workplace, and culture are chief among the factors thought to place constraints on managers. Managers, as much as workers and customers, are never truly free agents. (Lucas, 2003, p. 55) Another major obstruction, which needs to be overcome, is the freedom of exercising choice and authority of manager with respect to different organisation status and structure, including size of workplace will also serve to constrain the extent to which managers can exercise choice. Not all managers own and control their own business, and in larger hotel companies, restaurant and public house chains, and contract catering firms, managers are themselves also workers reporting to a more senior manager. Managers' choices are constrained by organisational policies, as well as by the actions of other managers and subordinates. Therefore there is a need to give liberty to the organisational structure. Achieving organisational goals through people is a complex and political process, political in the sense that it involves choosing how to reconcile differences among colleagues of different status and power who may be senior managers, peers or subordinate workers. Hotels may appear to be structured bureaucracies under the control of a general manager, but are essentially organic structures within which departmental managers have considerable autonomy and responsibility. Each department is a unique entity controlled by a manager skilled in that work that hires and fires, and determines the categories of labour to be used, the tasks to be performed and the timing of work. (Lucas, 2003, p. 57) Politics is not all that matters, the most important concern in hospitality industry is to alleviate the negative impacts of tourism from the environment. This could be done in the following ways: 1. Including the use of natural resources in an versatile fashion, 2. Alleviating the effects and creation of pollution and the displacement of peoples, 3. To understand the role-played by the 'landscapes' as a cultural embedded icon. The wealth utilisation should be properly done, keeping in view the processes of resource allocation. This is alone not the responsibility of tourism industry but also concern to economists and environmentalists, which possesses concern over the effects of development. Despite criticising the market economics through an inefficient mechanism of investigating resource allocation, environmentalists should think optimistically towards the use of physical and cultural resources in tourism. Environmentalists uphold a core responsibility within the context of managing effective services in order to improve physical environment for the society. This physical environment includes the ability to act as a waste disposal system assimilating the wastes of industrial production and other activities such as leisure and tourism. (Holden, 2003, p. 103) Also, it is the environment that impresses the tourist to provide us with the opportunity to highly motivate towards recreational landscapes. There is a need to properly perform the function of a waste disposal system for the tourism industry. Holden (2003) provides an example in the following manner: "for instance sewage is discharged from hotels into the sea, and aircraft release engine emissions into the atmosphere. At the same time the physical environment provides the communities of tourism destinations, and tourists, with the oxygen, water and food resources that are necessary for their survival". (Holden, 2003, p. 103) Hospitality upholds a responsibility not only towards hotel, catering and management but also to the environments and societies of those destinations in which it operates and which have remained the ideal places of tourists since decades. So, we can say that this applies to the historical places as well. Subsequently, environmental policy and management is becoming an increasingly important part of the Industry's operations. Tourism's ability to bring economic benefits and enhance political stability makes it an attractive development option to governments of countries whose environmental assets are conducive to the demands of western tourism markets, and where other options for economic development are few whilst large foreign debts need to be repaid. Following the example of Spain, a strong positive correlation has seemingly been established between the development of tourism and economic growth. Subsequently, from the perspective of government, the primary concern with tourism has been as a vehicle for economic growth. The responsibility also comes on the shoulders of the environmentalists to provide clean islands and unspoilt beaches. Increasing awareness of tourism's interaction with the environment should lead tourist destinations and tourism businesses to behave environmentally responsibly as they recognise the consequences of poor environmental performance for, respectively, their place and corporate images and their commercial success. The environmentalists must think and adopt creative strategies in order to cope up with various environmental concerns. Agenda 21 and the Tourism Industry: Agenda 21, the sustainable development action programme agreed at the 1992 Earth Summit, argues for environmental self-regulation by industry as a priority action for achieving its goals (UNCED 1992). It contains thirty-two provisions targeted at transnational corporations and these provide appropriate benchmarks against which environmental commitment and progress towards environmental improvement can be evaluated. The main concern refers to the measurement of the tourism industry up to legal provisions. At a general level, comparing the World Travel and Tourism Council's Environmental Principles (1991) against the Agenda 21 provisions reveal environmental responsibility and environmental management systems on all four out of eight provisions. (Hall & Richards, 2000, p. 69) Key aspects of environmental management in business are dealt with in these manuals, such as energy and water conservation, water and air quality, waste minimisation and disposal, noise abatement, environmental considerations in product purchase, land management and local external environment, and use of transport and community issues. The success of hospitality regarding tourist destinations and tourism businesses in implementing a particular aspect of environmental management is often illustrated by a relationship that exist between the overall level of tourist activity, the quality of the environment and the sum of the environmental performances of its individual tourism businesses. In this respect bottom-up approaches to reduce the impact on and protect the environment, defined in its widest sense to embrace social and cultural aspects, as well as the natural environment, are not confined to tourism industry actions. Indeed, even with the more direct impacts, such as waste generation, emissions and discharges, on which attention has been concentrated, local communities may have their own agendas and thus set standards and targets which accord with what is acceptable to them. For example, at seaside resorts, political action might be taken to promote land-based sewage treatment plants rather than continue to allow untreated discharges into the sea. Via participation in the land-use planning system local residents might influence building design, traffic-control schemes and noise-abatement schemes, to meet their needs rather than those of the tourism industry. In highlighting cycle tourism initiatives as a policy area exemplifying the logic of convergence across this organisational and policy divide, it is also argued that community benefits can be accrued through a strategic response by local authorities to combining initiatives on cycling and tourism, through the policy envelope of Local Agenda 21. Equally, we recognise the evidence that suggests that policy initiatives for cycle tourism, as with other forms of sustainable development, are emerging independent of LA21 as pragmatic responses to available resources. This, in fact, gives further support to the observations and concerns of Leslie and Hughes (1997) regarding the centrality of LA21 in local authority operations in the UK, and particularly within tourism planning and development. (Hall & Richards, 2000, p. 79) Fair Trade in Code of Practice Developing fair trade in tourism presents several difficulties, not limited to the concentration and domination of the mass market by a small number of operators and transport carriers in the north. Larger hotel chains besides UK are also evident in the Caribbean, Mexico, Pacific Asia and Southern Europe, leaving little scope for fair trade in the mass-tourism market. Tourism is, of course, a perishable commodity, which is also increasingly substitutable as destinations become more homogenised. Prices are also driven down by factors outside the influence of local tourism businesses, such as relative exchange rates, international competition and unfair trade (Josephides 1993). Where generator countries dominate inbound tourism, as is the case in Malta and Cyprus, a single tour operator can demand exchange rate subsidies from the host government, further increasing economic leakage and restricting more sustainable and quality tourism development, a vicious circle. Such approaches are therefore likely to require collaboration and joint ventures between tour operators, aid and development organisations, and developing relationships with host organisations, businesses and communities. In tourism the consumer travels to the place of production, but nevertheless in southern communities a range of intermediaries are involved in tourism production, administration and finance. Often these key intermediary functions are run by a business elite, or dominant ethnic and social groups, and failure to engage local economies with national policies and political and trade systems will therefore render any fair trade measures largely ineffectual. (Hall & Richards, 2000, p. 143) The tourism production chain requires a strategically created code of practice to be followed throughout the destination areas in tourism. References & Bibliography Sheller Mimi & Urry John, (2004) Tourism Mobilities: Places to Play, Places in Play: Routledge: London. Smith Duffy Mick Rosaleen, (2003) The Ethics of Tourism Development: Routledge: New York. Hall Derek & Richards Greg, (2000) Tourism and Sustainable Community Development: Routledge: London. Holden Andrew, (2003) Environment and Tourism: Routledge: New York. Publication Year: 2003 Josephides, N. (1993) Proceedings of Sustainable Tourism Conference, London: English Tourist Board Lucas E. Rosemary, (2003) Employment Relations in the Hospitality and Tourism Industries: Routledge: New York. United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (1992) Agenda 21; Chapter 28, UNCED, Geneva Read More