Human Rights and Human Travel? Modeling Global Travel Patterns Under an Ethical Tourism Regime

In response to calls for a more ethical approach to tourism, this article investigates how travel patterns would appear in the world if travel sanctions were applied to destinations that have well-documented serious human rights abuses. A discussion of travel boycotts and travel sanctions builds the case for considering the potential of travel sanctions as a tool to address human rights issues. Two scenarios of ethical travel are developed, based upon UNWtO international arrival data, together with human rights indices (using the World Freedom Survey) for over 200 destinations. Both scenarios see substantial numbers of visitors being 'redirected' from destinations with human rights abuses to those destinations classified as "Free." The article discusses the significance of this in terms of the moralization and politicization of outbound tourism.