The Ethical Food Tourist

Abstract

The exploration of food tourism as a phenomenon and food tourists as consumers raises numerous ethical considerations. This chapter is about food tourism and ethics and focuses on the concepts of sustainability and slowness. It discusses the complexity of such topics using two case studies from Italy: one a plant-based café and the other the owner and manager of an agritourism business. These cases suggest that sustainability and slowness in food tourism can be interpreted and implemented differently, pointing to two important lessons. The first concerns the view of ethics in food tourism not as a limiting factor but as contributing to the needs of ethical tourists and appealing to generic tourists. The second lesson concerns the opportunity to shape food tourism by evaluating the food heritage sold to tourists and, ultimately, integrating ethical considerations that reinvent or rediscover traditions.