Evaluating travel agents' provision of health advice to travellers

This paper examines the growing interest in the emergent field of travellers' health as evidenced throughout the expanding interdisciplinary literature on travel medicine. It examines the role of travel agents in the tourism distribution channel as the point of sale for tourism products to consumers and argues that the provision of health advice to intending travellers constitutes a major ethical dilemma for a business based on the sale of positive holiday experiences. The paper examines the responses and perceptions from a nationwide survey of travel agents in New Zealand and focuses on the health advice and information associated with outbound travel to Pacific Island destinations. © 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.