What we value is intricately linked to our morality and our ethics, whether personal or corporate. Sustainability is essentially a statement of morality, embedding as it does the notion of inter- and intra-generational equity. This includes, among other things, social justice. The values underlying tourism development are dominated by the corporate expedient of profit and by the State concern for wealth generation, irrespective of the impacts on workers.

This paper examines current trends in tourism employment from a social justice perspective. It seeks to clarify the links between social justice and sustainable development and argues that de-politicized approaches to tourism development have severe implications for already marginalized groups and the ability to meet key sustainability challenges. This paper is specifically focused on a particular social justice concern, labour rights, and will explore this issue through a case study, namely, the situation for low-wage guest workers in Singapore’s tourism industry.