ABSTRACT
Guidebooks are a much-used and influential information source for many tourists. This chapter aims to discuss how travel guidebooks present and communicate information on ethical tourism. It examines the role of travel guidebooks in communicating ethical tourism information. The research examines published text in commercial guidebooks on Peru, focusing on ethical content. Though manifest ethical content was limited, an argument could be made that by encouraging visits to cultural and environmental sites the Lonely Planet still promotes education, albeit that it relies on the specific sites themselves to provide the educational content. Each guidebook did have a specific section addressing health concerns, but this information was not coded in this research, which focused on environmental, socio-cultural and economic information. The ethical theme and Statement type theme distribution in each guidebook section are evaluated. The ethical information comprises only a small percentage of material in each book, but it is present.
