Legislation and Ethics in Travel and Tourism: A Comprehensive Overview

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LEGISLATION AND ETHICS IN TRAVEL AND TOURISM

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................................2
LO1..............................................................................................................................................................3
1.1 LEGAL AND REGULATORY FRAMEWORK IN TRAVEL AND TOURISM..................................................3
1.2 UNDERSTANDING THE LEGAL FRAMEWORK WITHIN SURFACE, AIR AND SEA TRANSPORT LAW......1
LO2..............................................................................................................................................................1
2.1 EVALUATE THE IMPACTS OF THE PRINCIPLES OF HEALTH, SAFETY AND SECURITY LEGISLATION......1
2.2 ANALYSING LEGISLATION THAT IS RELATED TO EQUALITY................................................................3
LO3..............................................................................................................................................................5
3.1 CONTRACT LEGISLATION IN RELATION TO TRAVEL AND TOURISM CUSTOMERS..............................5
3.2 CONSUMER PROTECTION LEGISLATION FOR THE CUSTOMER OF TRAVEL AND TOURISM................1
LO4..............................................................................................................................................................1
4.1 ETHICAL DILEMMA FACED BY THE TRAVEL AND TOURISM SECTOR..................................................1
4.2 ANALYSIS OF CSR ACTIVITIES OF A CORPORATION............................................................................2
CONCLUSION...............................................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................................5
1

INTRODUCTION
There is a combination of various national and international laws that help in regulating a
various aspect of travel and tourism industry. There are various regulatory framework and
health, safety and security laws and its impact within the travel and tourism industry. This
assignment help in understanding all these aspects related to legal procedure within the travel
and tourism industry. It also helps in understanding various law related to surface, sea and air
transport in the travel business. There are certain customer protection laws that help in
safeguarding the interest of the customer in the travel and tourism industry. The learner will
get an insight into these laws and their relation with travel and tourism. It also helps in
understanding the role of business ethics in the travel and tourism business. Lastly, it will help
in understanding various principles of business ethics that help in fulfilling corporate social
responsibility.
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LO1
1.1 LEGAL AND REGULATORY FRAMEWORK IN TRAVEL AND TOURISM
Regulatory framework includes various
guidelines, code of conduct, regulation that
helps in governing travel agencies,
organization, and airport. It helps in the
smooth functioning of tourist activities in
the country. The tourism business is
connected with the various seller, suppliers,
consumers contact and hospitality.
Legislation work when these factors
involved with each other. When these
elements that work within travel and
tourism interact with each other legislation
helps in regulating them. These systems of
rules or framework help in governing and
regulating various factors. These set of rules
manage various elements in the growing
travel and tourism industry. These are
certain legislation that is engaged in
managing various aspects within the travel
and tourism industry-
Tourism act 1969 - This act helps in
coordinating various activities involved in
the tourism industry. The main
responsibility of this act is to promote
tourism in Great Britain. Under this act
there are four regulatory bodies are
established. These four bodies are-
 British tourist authority
 Wales tourist authority
 Scottish tourist authority
 English tourist authority.
Transport act 1980 and 1985 - This act
regulates the routing system of public and
private bus companies. It mainly affects the
licensing law of express coach and tour bus
up to 30 miles. This law helps in allowing
buses to operate on a different route.
Package travel and tour regulation 1992-
This law regulates the standard procedure
of delivering services of tour operator in
respect to customer.it is important for
every tour operator in the UK to strictly
follow the regulation under this law.
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There are certain regulation that affects
the tourism law of the country-
Health and safety commission- Under this
commission, it is necessary to update
various laws related to health and safety.
International air transport association-It
helps in formulating various policies and
standards for the development of air
transport within the travel and tourism
sector.
Strategic rail authority - This authority is set
up by the non-department public body in
the UK. The main function of this authority
is to ensure that various rail facilities should
properly deliver in the UK.
Civil aviation authority -The main focus of
this authority is to ensure that various
regulations related to airspace usage and
aviation safety should get updated properly.
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1.2 UNDERSTANDING THE LEGAL FRAMEWORK WITHIN SURFACE, AIR AND
SEA TRANSPORT LAW
Transport law deals with various laws
related to transporting. These laws provide
the regulatory framework to surface, sea
and air transport. There are various laws
that safeguard the rights of passengers and
ensure that the carrier is fulfilling its
liability. The liability of carrier like
compensation for any kind of loss occur
during the course of the journey and
happen because of some kind of safety and
security negligence. These laws are
discussed in detail below-
Surface law: The surface law of the UK is
governed by the carriage of a passenger by
road act 1979. Railway privatization helps in
the development of transport of good and
passengers in the area. The main aim of this
law is to formulate and protects the
passengers on boards.it also safeguard the
rights of passenger that are on board .it
includes –
 Passenger claims related to physical
damage or mental disorders.
 Passenger complaints related to loss
of luggage or valuable item during
the journey. It is governed by
railway act 1972.
 It also safeguards the interest of
disabled passengers.
Sea law: Sea law is formulated by the
international maritime organization. The
main aim of this law is to monitor shipping
security and safety. There are various
environmental factors that affect the
functioning of ships it helps in regulating
them. It gives a right to a passenger to claim
compensation for the death or personal
injury happens while on sea craft. It
regulates the functioning of fire safety
measures and ensures that crewmember
must have fire fighting skills. It also ensures
life-saving equipment should be available in
sea craft. It also governs any damage to
passengers belonging while they are on the
ship or sea craft. It has many regulatory
bodies like an international convention for
the safety of life at sea (SOLAS), Athens
convention, etc.
Air law: This law regulates different
legislation. The main aim of this law is to
improve various protection standards for air
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passengers (Wensveen, 2018). It helps in
ensuring harmonized operation of carriers.
It includes-
 Warsaw convention of 1929 aims at
monitoring various rules regarding
licensing and document of carriage.
It also governs passenger rights to
claim for a personal loss like death
or injury caused by any mishap while
traveling on aircraft. It also ensures
that airline performs every safety
procedure like checking of
passenger’s luggage.
 The five freedom agreements that
limit the flying territory of aircraft
and ensure it should not land
beyond it.it also ensure that carriage
is landing passengers on their
destined territory.
 The denied boarding compensation
scheme aimed at improving the
protection standard and monitor the
operation of aircraft.
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LO2
2.1 EVALUATE THE IMPACTS OF THE PRINCIPLES OF HEALTH, SAFETY AND
SECURITY LEGISLATION
The main focus of the legislation is to integrate various practices and regulate the development
of the travel and tourism industry. It helps in determining the rights and obligation of peoples
involve in this industry. Legislation determines various responsibilities of employer and
employee in this business. It helps in minimizing the risk of accident during travel. Health safety
and security of passengers is very important for providing quality in tourism. The success of the
travel and tourism industry highly depends on the safety and security of visitors. This
legislation helps in maintaining a safe and secure environment. Health and safety regulation
also ensure the safety of the working environment. legislation and regulation are intended to
determine liability and obligation of employee or travel providers in order to maintain safe
accommodation, health services and a secure environment for passengers. These are main
regulation that helps in maintaining safety environment:
Health and safety act (HSWA) 1974 –The act help in enforcing workplace security and safety
within the UK. This Act helps in determining the general duty of the employer, employee and
various other tourist providers with respect to the safety, health, and security. To ensure safety
environment there are following regulating body under this law-
 Approved Code of practices (ACOP) - It allows the government to issue a guideline for
employers related to hazardous work practices. These are certain guideline
responsibility of employers to maintain safety in the workplace from computers,
machinery or hazardous chemicals. Breach of any of the guideline under ACOP will make
employer liability to pay for it.
 Health and Safety Guidance- The main focus of this guidance is to ensure that people
should have proper awareness about prevalent legislations and help in proper working
of this legislation and regulatory body.
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 Regulation – Under health and safety regulation if the number of employee in an
organization is more than 5 than a written code of safety is provided to them. It also
ensures that employee should get proper training session regarding the use of hazards
material. The training program must include an induction program for a new entrance.
Ongoing training program for the existing employee in order to give information about
new machinery or skills related to safety and also notices and cautions signs on
machinery procedures.
Occupier liability Act- This act is enforced by the UK in order to maintain a duty of care related
to the safety of a property. The main aim of this law is to ensure that the landlord of property
should maintain the safety of their property. It also covers the contact of entering property and
liability of visitors.
Fair Trading Act - The main reason for the enforcement of this law is to promote fair
competition and ensure product safety. The main aim of the FTA act is to make sure that
consumer will get the proper and right information about product and services before buying it.
This act has certain rights that safeguard consumer interest and health safety within travel and
tourism.
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2.2 ANALYSING LEGISLATION THAT IS RELATED TO EQUALITY
It is one of the greatest responsibilities of tourism industry legislation to ensure that every
person gets access to goods and services without any discrimination related to age, gender or
race. It is important for legislation to ensure that the travel provider treat everyone equally. If
any travel provider refuses to provide a certain set of services or offer services of different
quality to a different customer than it comes under discrimination.
Equality Act 2010- The main function of equality law is to regulate equality within employee
and customers. It is consist of various regulatory bodies. This law is enforced to protect
discrimination on the basis of disability, gender reassignment, maternity, race, belief, and
sexual orientation. It is consist of regulatory act like-
Equal pay act 1970-The main aim of this act is to remove wages disparity based on
discrimination related to sex, race or caste.
Race relations act 1976- Any kind of discrimination related to the color of skin, race or national
origin is addressed under this act.
Disability discrimination act 1995- It regulates any kind of discrimination with a disabled
employee. It establishes the responsibility of the employee to put various measures or do a
reasonable adjustment that helps disable employee to overcome various problems (Gardner,
2018).
Employment equality regulation 2006- It prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual
orientation or age of a person.
Sex discrimination act 1975-The main of this act is to protect any kind of sexual discrimination
or discrimination on the ground of marital status.
Equal opportunity act 2010- The main focus of this act is to eliminate discrimination and
encourage equality of opportunity. It reports a gender pay gap, employment law, and equal pay
legislation. It safeguards the interest of employee by monitoring the following things-
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 Recruitment policies and interview procedure.
 Employment terms and condition.
 Employment-related benefits, opportunities, promotion, and transfers.
 Issue related to dismissed and demoted from the position.
 Training opportunity and procedure.
These are a certain type of discrimination come under the legislation-
Direct- When a person is treated unequally according to the standard of law it comes into a
category of direct discrimination. Generally, direct discrimination happens because of the
wrong assumption about people personal character.
Indirect- When any person is set apart from a certain facility or treating badly imposing a
certain unreasonable condition on the person it is indirect discrimination.
PerspectiveDiscrimination with the person on the basis of perception or according to the
absence of certain character is called perspective discrimination.
Harassment- When a person is treated with certain unwelcome conduct even after the denial
or against the will. It is harassment.
Disability -When a person is treated differently on the basis of its dysfunctional body it is
discrimination on the basis of disability.
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LO3
3.1 CONTRACT LEGISLATION IN RELATION TO TRAVEL AND TOURISM
CUSTOMERS
A contract is a legal deal within two parties
that commit to providing certain services
and product and obliged to indulge in legal
practices (Cotterrell, 2018). Travel
companies are generally in contact with a
consumer that combined with detail of
product and services. There are some basic
term and conditions attached to the contact
legislation in the travel business.These are –
 Place of Destination
 Departure and arrival
 Duration and cost of stay
In any condition travel business operators
are not able to communicate the above set
of conditions than a customer can
withdrawal from the contact at any point of
time. These are standard elements that are
required in any contact-
Offers- When any two parties enter into the
contact than the first and foremost thing is
offered. Offer is an exchange of money in
return for services. An offer does not come
into existence until the offeree responds to
it. An offer can be terminated by offeror
only before the acceptance. Offer has a
fixed expiration date.
Acceptance-Acceptance can be
understandable by its meaning. Whenever
an offer from one party is accepted by the
offeree or another party it is called
acceptance. There are certain rules
regarding the acceptance under contact law
it includes-
 The acceptance of offeree should
not be conditional.
 Acceptance should properly
communicate with the offerer.
 Acceptance should be given in valid
period of time or before the expiry
of the offer.
 Acceptance should be
communicated through any mode to
the offerer.
Consideration- Consideration shows the
validity of the contact. When one party
gives something valuable in return of any
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