| Responsible Tourism represents an exciting paradigm of development in the tourism industry. It is a concept which has received increased attention by both industry and academia in the past few years. Its ability to contribute to more equitable, sustainable development in the developing world has been noted. However, our understanding of responsible tourism remains unclear, primarily due to the fact that current operationalization of the concept has failed to adequately examine the notion of responsibility at the level of the business. In response to this gap, the present dissertation examines the supply and demand of responsible tourism in the context of a specific form of the tourism intermediary - social enterprises in responsible tourism. The first study examines the supply side of responsible tourism by exploring the motivations for social entrepreneurship in the case of two social entrepreneurs in India using Max Weber's Typology of Rationality. The second study examines the demand side of responsible tourism by identifying the push and pull motivations of travelers to five responsible tourism operators in India. The third study examines the antecedents of the travelers' loyalty towards these operators. In so doing, this dissertation represents a comprehensive examination of the notion of responsibility from the perspectives of two key stakeholders in the tourism system - the inbound tour operator and the consumer. |
