In pursuit of a more just international tourism: the concept of trading tourism rights

Research on sustainable tourism mainly focuses on incoming tourism, and destination perspectives and impacts, and less on the focus of this paper – outgoing tourism. In this context, direct and personal access to tourism represents an equal right to all world citizens. Because this right has not been exercised equally, the world is divided into two parts, excess and deprived, tourism citizens and their nation-states. This paper proposes a more just tourism system to balance the rights of tourists to travel, with the right to development, equal tourism participation, and consumption of world resources. It draws on theories from Nozick and Rawls on rights and justice to ground our model, backed by the work of other writers including Hultsman, Higgins-Desbiolles, Jamal, and Camargo. It expands the definition of just tourism to activate tourism's potential to become a developmental force in the existing socio-economic global order. This potential is realised through the use of market-based economic instruments for the implementation of a just tourism system. It suggests how to create financial flows towards third world states for their development and modernisation, using the concept of tradable tourism certificates, a concept tested in emissions control, population, and land use planning.