Legal and Ethical Frameworks in the Travel & Tourism Industry

This report provides an overview of the legal and ethical considerations within the travel and tourism sector in the UK. It examines the legal and regulatory framework, including transport laws and the Tourism Act of 1969, and analyzes the impact of safety and security legislation, equality legislation, contract legislation, and consumer protection laws. Furthermore, the report explores ethical dilemmas faced by the tourism sector and the importance of corporate social responsibility. Key aspects covered include the responsibilities of carriers in surface, sea, and air transport, the role of the Health and Safety Commission, and compliance with various Acts such as the Transport Act, Package Travel Regulations, and Data Protection Act. The report emphasizes the need for adherence to these legal and ethical standards to ensure the sustainable and responsible growth of the tourism industry.

Legislation and Ethics in
Travel and Tourism
Sector

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................4
1.2 Legal and regulatory framework of travel and tourism sector..............................................4
1.2 Surface, sea and air transport law in relation to carriage of passengers................................6
TASK 2 ...........................................................................................................................................7
2.1 Impacts of safety and security legislation on tourism sector................................................7
2.2 Analysis of equality legislation.............................................................................................9
TASK 3..........................................................................................................................................10
3.1 Contract legislation in relation to travel and tourism customers.........................................10
3.2 Consumer protection legislation in travel and tourism customers......................................11
TASK 4..........................................................................................................................................12
4.1 Analysis of ethical dilemmas faced by tourism sector........................................................12
4.2 Analysis of corporate social responsibility........................................................................13
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................14
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................15

INTRODUCTION
The tourism industry is most growing industry in UK market. People are continuously
engaged in enchanting the services of the tourist industry. The company is dealing with the
various destination of the world and involved in service providing to the customers. This
involves various laws to be followed in tourism industry. The legal frame work of the countries
helps in development of tourist industry legally and ethically (Battour, Ismail and Battor, 2010).
The tourist visit to new destination in various location of world and there may happen something
unlawful to them. So, government of different countries defined various laws related to the travel
and tourism sector. There may be some criminal act with tourist or may be fraud by tourist
company to client. So, to protect various rights of employee tourist different laws are introduced
in UK legislation.
This report studies the various law related to the tourism ensuring the compensation from
the defended party. The legalisation in travel industry plays very important role in development
and in smoothing the operations of tourism service sector. This provide protection to the
company , employee, visitors. This legal laws also includes various laws related to airlines
company, hotel industries.
TASK 1
1.2 Legal and regulatory framework of travel and tourism sector
The tourism industry is having a large importance of the legislation in the development of
business as they provide an lawful agenda to the activities of tourism services. The tourism an
the legislations are interconnected. The tourism industry is having engagement of various
persons like sellers, suppliers, consumer, contracts etc. that influence the functioning of the
tourist industry (Bentley and et.al., 2012). This conclude need of legislation in controlling and
monitoring of various factors like consumer behaviour, different contact between agent and
tourist, hospitality services etc. For ethical development of these factors there is need of
government regulation and laws related to the tourism industry.
The Legal framework of any industry involves the different laws and rules that helps in
decision making process. This involves various provision that can be utilised in making decision
about any unlawful act. The regulatory framework is defined as the methods of enforcing the
law by legislation. This helps in providing the protection of law defined in legal framework of

legislation. Tourism Act 1969 developed by government to provided various laws related to the
tourism sector. This law include the collective functioning of various companies for development
of tourism industry like airlines companies, hotel and restaurants, transportation service industry
etc. This is regulated by UK government ion the country (Buhalis and Darcy, 2011). This also
involves the British tourist authority. The laws of tourism includes various legislation provisions
related to the health and safety; environment protection law; company act; contract act. The
various legislation defined by UK government are:
 Transports Act 1980-1985: this act in-acted after the issue of termination of express
coach routes of more than 30 miles by the licensing laws. This is found that it increases
high competition in the private transport service provider and the public service provider.
After making some changes in legalisation the govern met of UK provided licensing to
the private buses to operate in all routes.
 Package travel, package tours and package holidays regulations 1992: This law defines
the various packages related to the tourism depending upon the tourist needs should be
provided by the travel company. It is the responsibility of tour organiser to provide all
facilities designed in tour package. The tour holiday package should be comprises of the
basic requirement of the tourist needed while making travelling for some destination.
 Consumer protection Act: this protects the rights of consumer of services from the
unlawful activities carried out by earning own profit and for commercial benefits.
 Healthy and safety legislation: this ensure the protection of consumer, employee from the
risky situation. This ensures the company to take all safety measures while engaged in the
exploitation of services of tourism industry (Camus, Hikkerova and Sahut, 2012).
 Licensing act 2003: This provides selling out the alcohol at authorised location by the
government of UK. If someone founds the person is selling alcohol in late night without
approval then court can stay on orders and can deny the licensing of the particular person
shop.
 Sexual offence: This law ensures protection from any sexual harassment activities during
the time of trip or in the office premises with women employee of the travel and tourism
industry.
 Data protection act 1998
The basic goals and objective of the tourism legislation are:

 Helps in development of standard procedures of travel and tourism activities.
 Development of tourism operations in disciplinary manner.
 Ensures the rights of the customers and employee working with travel and tourism
industry.
 The legislation ensures the protection against illegal action for the purpose of
commercial benefits.
There various industry that works collectively in the travel and tourism service sector to
provide quality and satisfied services to the customers (Chuang and et.al., 2014). This different
industries of tourism sector that are regulated by the UK legislations are:
 Health and Safety Commission
 International Air Transport Association
 Strategic Rail Authority
 Civil Aviation Authority
1.2 Surface, sea and air transport law in relation to carriage of passengers
The carrier and carriage are two different terms that are defined by the Athens
Convention. Carrier is the person who is engaged in the carriage of person, luggage from one
place to another. The carrier is abided by the carriage with the help of an agreement enforceable
by law. The carriage may be person or the luggage like vehicle or other item. The liability of the
carrier are described in article 3 by the Athens convention:
 The carrier is liable to pay loss of the damage to carriage is in between the process of
carriage.
 The suffers will claim for the liability of the carrier.
The various laws related to the carriage of passenger with help of sea, air and surface
means of transportation are described below:
 Surface laws: This is defined as international carriage of passenger by road act 1979. this
defines the provisions related to surface transportation and carriage of passenger. IT
regulates the protection of passenger at the time of boarding with the surface
transportation means (Cohen, 2014). The passenger can claim for liability of carrier if
there is case of any mental, physical damage while travelling with carrier. Railway act
also provides protection against loss of luggage if any. The private railways has
developed their facility and provide services related to the transportation of goods as well

as passengers. This also enables satisfaction and comfortable trip by disable person by
means of surface transportation.
 Sea law: The safety of the shipping through ways of sea is ensured by the international
Maritime organisation. In the amendment of 2002 in anthem convention it is defined that
passenger travelling thorough sea ways should provided with insurance to increase the
time of liability for the damage (Croce and Perri, 2010). This includes various safety
measures like, fire fighting skills, life saving equipments at time of shipment of
passengers and goods.
 Air law: this laws provide protection against any damage to carriage during the process of
carriage through means of air ways transportation. It involves various provision that
secure the passenger from, any damage during the travel time. The international carriage
regulates the documentation of carriage while travelling defined by the Warsaw
convention of 1929. the passenger is right to claim against the death and demand for
compensation from the authority of airlines. The Montreal conference replaced a
complete patchwork with single instrument that provide legalisation to the carriage of
passenger. The different freedom agreements regulate and controls the unnecessary flying
across the location, landing the plane without any specific reason, putting the cargo and
passenger before the destined location (Dawson and et.al., 2011). All these laws protect
the passenger from making precautions related to activates that may can be harmful in
future for the carriage of passenger.
TASK 2
2.1 Impacts of safety and security legislation on tourism sector
The legalisation is developed in the tourism sector for the continuous growth of the
industry. The various activities of tourism are carried out buy the different members of the
organisation that are to be regulated by the legislation for establishment of healthy, safe and
secure environment in the organisation. The government established various provision to develop
safe environment to secure from various hazardous activities. The employee and the employee
are should be mutually concerned about the available risk in environment and make
precautionary actions against the hazardous affect in the organisation to decrease the chances of
accidents in workforce. The employer should provide healthy working environment for the

organisation. The countries and various tourism companies are ensuring the quality services to
the customer with taken and developed alls safety measures. This involves providing safer
environment and accommodation places to the consumer of the services of the travel and tourism
organisation (Day and Cai, 2012). The health and safety commission defines various legislation
for the safety measures related to health and security in UK tourism. These are defined as below:
 Guidance: The commission is engaged in providing knowledge about the safety measures
to control any accident. The provision also defines the various laws related to the heath
and safety of tourists. This provides technical guidelines to the people of UK for better
understanding the provisions of the tourism legislation and the safety laws.
 Approved Codes of practice (ACOP): The legals commission of UK government defines
various hazardous objects and the hazardous activities tat may damage the heath of
employee working the organisation. This is the employer liability if any damage is caused
in the workplace due to hazardous object or accidental activities. Acop requires defence
against the governed authority to claim of damage on employer. The various duties of the
employer related to the ACOP are:
1. Apply precautions in relation to reduce the chances accidental damage by heating and
lighting in the work environment.
2. Availability of first aid in the premises if the workplace
3. Developing the accident prone area in workplace to provide safety and security of the
employees.
The employee duties described in ACOP provision of the safety and security
commission's provision are:
1. Attend all safety training session to establish safe environment in the organisation.
2. Analyses the perspective accidents that can happen in workplace and the actual
hazardous accidents (Dickinson and Lumsdon, 2010).
3. Take measures for prevention of accidents to enabling the security of the workforce
of organisation.
 Regulations: this provision includes that the employee and the employer should regulate
the safety and security laws appropriately. They should implement all provisions in the
organisation to ensuring the safety of the workforce in workplace. If 5 members of the
organisation conclude the needs of safety and security instrument than these should be

issued according to the provision defined in the legislation of health and security. This
includes various types of training:
1. Induction training for providing information about the safety instruments and the
manures and the precautionary measures to be taken (Fenclova and Coles, 2011).
2. Notices: defines various signs for defining the accident prone area or the harmful
substances.
3. Handbook: this is for the staff of the company to provide information about all
equipment and their utilisation.
4. Providing safety training to the employees.
2.2 Analysis of equality legislation
The equality defined as not to discriminate anyone on the basis of age, sex, religion,
origin country etc. To develop ethical operations in the travel and tourism sector the agent and
the company should not discriminate their employee and the customers on the basis of various
demographic factors. The tourist can not be treated differentially by the tour organiser ion the
basis of various services provides to the customers. The consumer of services should not be
discriminated ion the basis of utilisation of goods provided in the holiday package (Forno and
Garibaldi, 2015). They should not be discriminated by providing lower quality product as
compare to other people. The tourist industry should ensure the equal opportunity to all proper
for employment and nit to treat different in relation to the religion, gender, age etc.
The equality act of 2010 comprises various laws like equal pay act 1970, sex
discrimination act 1975, Disability discrimination act 1995, race relations act 1976, employment
equality. The person should not be discriminated in the basis of sex and provided with equal
opportunity of education, utilisation of resources, employment etc. the race discrimination
defines the treating a person differently due to belongingness of colour, nationality and national
origin. The various kind of discriminate describe under the equality law are as follows:
 Direct: The direct discrimination can be defined as when some one of treated differently
in the direct aspects of standards defined in the legislation like sex,a ge, gender etc,.
 Indirect: This defines not to allowing utilisation of facilities by the person due to
belonging to an discriminated group.
 Perceptive: This is defined as the discrimination arises from the perception and attitude of
person towards other later on which results in involvement of discrimination activities.

 Harassment: When there is undesirables behaviour is shown by individual towards the
victim of suffering. This includes teasing, making use of wrong words, or psychological
exploitation of the victim (Foster, McCabe and Dewhurst, 2010).
 Disability: This involves the person is discriminated on the basis of some physical or
psychological disability. This may include non-functioning of body part, semi-conscious
etc.
TASK 3
3.1 Contract legislation in relation to travel and tourism customers
A contract is the agreement that is enforceable by law including free consideration both
the parties. Contract is developing lawful relation between the offerer and acceptor formed in
relation of transfer of goods, services and money. The travel and tourism industry is involved in
binding contractual relationship with customers by offering services and demanding money in
return. Every contract established by the tourism company re abided by some terms and
condition on which the acceptance of the both the parties otherwise the contract will not be
lawful contract is always unconditional in nature and have free consideration of both offerer and
acceptance. The contract is all details about the ascertained object and well defined specifications
bout the services provides, accommodation services and the transportation services. The
specification of the Contract are as described below:
 Offer: The offer is the given by the offerer in intention of receiving acceptance from the
offree. The offerer involves all details of services offered by the offerer. This establishes
a lawful agreement between both parties. The offer given by the tourism company to
customer includes all details like tourist destination, time period of package, location and
accommodation facilities, guide and transportation facilities and other facilities provided
by the tourism company to the customer with well defined all terms and conditions
(Gürtin, 2011).
 Acceptance: When the offree is ready to accept the offer given by the offerer. This may
include imperative acceptance or expressed acceptance by the acceptor. When the
package details provided by the services industry seems to be good for the customer than
he give acceptance to the services of the tourism industry and express acceptance through
paying the amount of package. This establishes a contract between both the parties.

 Consideration: the free consideration is defined as the both the parties should get in return
mutually while establishing a contract. For acceptance of the contract there should be
consideration between tourism company and the customers. Without consideration the
agreement is not enforceable by law. The payment done by the customer is the evidence
of consideration for the tourism company (Guttentag, 2015).
 Capacity: this defines the individual capability to abide with the lawful contract. The
capability of the acceptance require condition of unsound mind, free consent, the age a to
involved in contract. To be engaged in holiday package services the customer should be
having minimum age of 18 years.
 Certainty: There should be certain conditions defined in the contract. The certainty
defines the condition of free acceptance to all offer described in the contract.
3.2 Consumer protection legislation in travel and tourism customers
The trade Description Act 1968 helps in preventing the misleading by the company to
earn more profitability by false pricing , wrong quality, delivery of services not ascertained in the
contract (Hall, Gossling and Scott, 2015). This all protects the rights of the customers of the
travel and tourism industry. The responsibility of trading standards officers are as following:
 It is the officer responsibility to counter the solution of false description by the tourism
company.
 Prevention measures for the wrong description defined by the facilities ad services
provided to the customer.
The consumer protection act 1987 defines the various rights of consumer ensured by the
government of UK. The regulation helps in:
 Supply of better goods to customers.
 The company should develop legal authority to protect the rights of customers.
 Developing liability of product so the the sufferer can claim for compensation of losses.

TASK 4
4.1 Analysis of ethical dilemmas faced by tourism sector
Travel and tourism is a very broad concept with complex nature like TUI is a
multinational organization deals in a tourism sector by serving all the tourist in equal manner in a
ethical way by following all the rules and regulation without exploiting norms and beliefs of the
tourism sector. Basically TUI is a group of travel agencies having a similar motive of pursuing
all the travelling activities in a proper manner by adopting effective strategies to fulfil the
demand of domestic as well as foreign customers with qualitative products. Their main motive is
to maintain the standard of tourism sector by implementing qualitative projects with inclusion of
all the relevant facts and figures essentials for this hospitality sector (Holden, 2016). Apart from
this a cited group faced many more challenges and risk at international due to the complexity in
nature of travel agency as due to increases in tourism sector most of the organization expanded
their business in the hospitality sector with their own motive due to which existing enterprises
has to face many ethical dilemmas because of their competitors. Ethical dilemmas are the
situation where an organization has to go through from selection of appropriate direction of
conducting their business on which their overall business activities is based without exploiting
the interest of society and their customers.
Ethical dilemmas consider as a natural part of every business or organization because
while establishing of any organization and enterprise at international level they must conducted
some rules and regulations for their employees or it can also states as a ethical policy of the
organization on which their business is depended to perform all the activities by following
appropriate direction or ethical norms of the organization (Leng and Whittaker, 2010). In fact
ethical norms are very indispensable for the organization bright future because if a cited
enterprise followed the rightful path then they must achieve their objectives of the tourist sector.
Due to emergence of many new and advanced trend ethics required to protect the rights of
employees as well as customers across the globe by conducting their tourism activities in a
ethical way.
Ethical dilemmas in a travel and tourism sector is the term which describe the appropriate
path adopted by the cited organization or sector to perform their relevant activities with the use
of correctly data and information by protecting the rights of all the tourist travelling from one

place to another with diffident-different objectives. It means this ethical dilemmas created due to
the emergence of new and innovative ideas with creative things which enforce the law and
higher authority to make sure that all the tourism task is completed in a ethical way without
exploiting any natural and artificial factors with full protection of their customer rights.
4.2 Analysis of corporate social responsibility
TUI is the group in travel and tourism sector consisting of various other multinational
groups with a similar motive of serving their customers in a best manner with best quality
product by satisfying their needs and wants with adoption of effective strategies. An organization
need to perform their CSR activities to protect the rights of the society by implementing various
other societal program for their betterment (Lunt, Mannion and Exworthy, 2013). Corporate
social responsibilities in context with travel and tourism sectors is to conservation of human
rights by providing them qualitative product with appropriate facilities by attracting their
customers with their uniqueness and innovative style of serving tourist. In fact they try to create
a lots of effective planning to avoid any errors and mistakes in tourist sector which may harm the
present scenario of the travelling field. Apart from this a cited organization tries to conduct
various effective social programmes for the society betterment to achieve the objectives of CSR
by performing all the roles and responsibility in a ethical with protection of their customer rights
by uplifting their standard. In other words corporate social responsibility is the institution created
for enhancement of current situation of poor people by uplifting overall society by taking various
useful initiatives to raise the living standard of the society with implementation of attractive
strategies and plans.
Its not easy to implement the programme of the CSR because it plays a role of advisory
body which created rules and regulation or norms and beliefs for the overall corporate society
with similar motive of protecting society from exploitation by providing them accurate data and
information to get aware and updated about essentials information which act as a very effective
tools and techniques while taking decision in their life (McCabe, Joldersma and Li, 2010). CSR
in context with travel and tourism plays a very eminent role due to vast nature of the sector, a
cited organization need to take appropriate initiatives for overall society protection with the help
of expertise person with specialised and skilled labour to attain their societal goals. At the end
TUI focussed on their overall roles and duties to achieve their objectives by understanding the
reason behind establishment of their organization and motive of the enterprise by throwing lights