Towards an Ethics of Tourism? : Tensions at Work in the Development and the Understanding of Codes of Ethics by Various Actors

Résumé 0

The search for an ethics of tourism involves the devising of charters and codes of good practice. This article uses participatory observations of solidarity tourism in a TDS village in Burkina Faso to examine the elaboration of rules that contribute to the contractualization of a partnership whose intended task is to regulate conduct in international exchanges and the limits of this partnership. The study shows how these “rules of good conduct” are perceived by the different signatories to the charter and how they are applied in the field. Analysis of the appropriation, the deviation or rejection of these rules by the various parties in the touristic encounter – tourists, village inhabitants or development NGOs – helps better understand the discrepancies in representation that exist between the discourse conveyed and the texts produced on the “moral” aspects of the touristic encounter, and their assimilation and perception by the different parties.