Ethics Under Pressure: Exploring Recurring Dilemmas and Interpretive Responses in Tourism Marketing

Abstract

Sustainability occupies a central place in tourism marketing, yet contradictions between ecological ideals, market imperatives, and stakeholder expectations complicate its realization. This study investigates how tourism marketing professionals perform the moral labor of transforming sustainability from aspiration into communicable practice. Drawing on 50 in-depth interviews with practitioners from national tourism boards, airlines, tour operators, and destination marketing organizations, and grounded in interpretivist epistemology and constructivist ontology, the analysis employs reflexive thematic methods. Four recurring dilemmas—Compliance Fixation, Growth versus Responsibility, Stakeholder Silencing, and Symbolic Overload—and four interpretive responses—Responsible Storytelling, Pragmatic Reframing, Trust Protection, and Emotional Endurance—were identified. These practices enable professionals to reconcile contradictions, sustain legitimacy, and protect moral identity under institutional complexity. The study advances institutional, stakeholder, and sensemaking theories by conceptualizing sustainability marketing as a lived moral practice rather than a rhetorical strategy and offers practical insights for designing ethically resilient, stakeholder-inclusive sustainability communication in tourism organizations.