Travel globally, spend locally

Promoters of ethical travel see vast potential. Tourism is expected to generate $6.4 trillion in revenue this year and is often cited as the world's largest industry. Travelers by definition have disposable income to spend, and they often enjoy direct access to needy people whom they would otherwise never meet. For these reasons and others, travel can be a major way to advance social change.

Though ethical travel remains a small subset of the travel industry, the sector seems to be growing. For example: the British website responsibletravel.com could find just five tour companies worthy of recommendation when the site launched five years ago. Now its stable of screened operators has grown to more than 160. The site expects to do more than $30 million in sales next year.

Some industries say that the market is ripe for services touting good ethics. The American Hotel & Lodging Association, which estimates that 43 million domestic travelers each year are "environmentally minded," has for two years let its most energy-efficient members display a Good Earthkeeping logo.

Conscience-driven travelers leverage their clout in various ways. In Tasmania, travelers visit endangered forests, support nearby businesses, and write tourism officials in a bid to persuade locals that their trees are more valuable as tourist attractions than as furniture. Elsewhere, discerning travelers discourage overfishing by not eating Chilean sea bass, shark, bluefin tuna, and other at-risk types listed by the Monterey (Calif.) Bay Aquarium (www.mbayaq.org).

Do such tactics get results? Maybe. In June 2003, travelers launched a boycott of Nepal, a popular destination for Himalayan trekking, in response to the government's repatriating 18 Tibetan refugees to China. When Nepal reversed its policy a few months later, boycotters felt they'd had some measure of influence.

"You can't absolutely say, 'we stopped this,' " says travel writer Jeff Greenwald, cofounder of ethicaltraveler.org, a network of travelers and travel businesses. "But we did have an impact. The positive results emerged because of pressure from many sides. I think the pressure we asserted was an important part of that equation."

But a Nepalese official denies a strong connection. "I don't think that because of their boycotting, the Nepalese government changed the policy," says Lekhanath Gautam, press officer for Nepal's Embassy in Washington. Other factors played a pivotal role: "Maybe that [boycott] also helped ... but I cannot say it is only because of that," he says.

As ethical travelers learn what works and what doesn't, they're honing the notion that they have power to reinforce local behaviors, either positively or negatively. Several agree, for instance, that giving money to children who beg is a bad idea because it rewards habits of dependency and makes truancy profitable.

"With begging, you don't know where your money is going," Miano says. "There are better ways to help." He suggests, for instance, donating to a local agency or school that knows the community needs.

Still, certain ethical dilemmas haven't yielded consensus about what's the right thing to do. Among the toughest is whether travelers do more harm than good when they visit nations notorious for human rights abuses.

"It's fine to travel to countries [with checkered track records] as long as you're aware of what's going on and you take pains not to support the government regime or industry that is promoting the unethical practice." Mr. Greenwald says. "Individual travel to a country like Burma [Myanmar] is morally acceptable if you go with an awareness of the political oppression there, but going with large groups that support government-run industries and airlines is not acceptable."

Barnett, however, has skewered travel writers who recommended a Myanmar hotel that was built with the uncompensated efforts of political prisoners. In her view, Myanmar should be avoided by all people of conscience. "Money that the regime gets out of tourism goes to fund their military campaign against minority groups," she says. Business there is "either government-run or part-owned by government and family members," she says, which makes it impossible for visitors to maintain ethical purity.

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