Benchmarking the UNWTO Practical Tips for the Global Traveller: An Islamic Preview.

Despite the great emphasis on tourism as a worldwide leading economic sector, tourism basically remains as a social activity which has been typically associated with numerous positive and negative impacts. In this context, it could be understood why the UNWTO tended in 1999 to release its Code of Ethics for Tourism and to follow that by issuing the UNWTO Practical Tips for the Global Traveller in 2005 aiming mainly to set up a frame of mutual understanding and respect between tourists and their hosting societies in tourism destinations. On the other hand, almost all the known religions have a substantial component of social ethics, values and regulations. Accordingly, this paper aims to benchmark the UNWTO Practical Tips for the Global Traveller (PTGT) against the principles of Islam as one of the world’s main religions. In this regard, content analysis of assorted, relevant documents in association with semi-structured interviews were employed as research methods, which resulted in identifying similarities and dissimilarities between the two models, and revealed the need for reforming some of the items of the PTGT as well as adding few new principles. The research findings could be of significance for several stakeholders including PTGT formers, sociologists, as well as tourism decision makers.