Freebies, Junkets and Other Ethical Challenges

The acceptance of hosted or sponsored travel by travel writers—long regarded as an ethical slippery-slope—has become common practice for most and is now far from the most challenging ethical issue facing contemporary travel writers, as the very nature of travel changes. Do we boycott destinations that have spurious human rights records? How do we reconcile frequent travel with our contribution to climate change? Through all this, can travel writers still subscribe to providing readers with honest, objective coverage? This chapter looks at the development of ethical standards and writers’ attitudes toward them.