ABSTRACT
The General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), launched in 1995, firmly embedded tourism as a trade export on the agenda of international trade negotiations in the context of liberalisation and free market access. However, the Agreement was severely critiqued for potentially reinforcing environmental degradation, poverty and inequality in developing countries through liberalisation in tourism and other related sectors, such as water and health (Kalisch 2001, 2010). This provided the context in 1996 for the launch of an investigation by the UK based non-governmental organization (NGO) Tourism Concern into the feasibility of Fair Trade in Tourism, modelled on the success of Fair Trade in primary commodities, such as coffee, tea and bananas (Badger et al. 1996; Cleverdon and Kalisch 2000; Kalisch 2001, 2010).
