Does the experience make a difference? Comparing tourist attitudes pre- and post-visit towards the elephant tourism industry

Emily K Flower,Georgette Leah Burns,Darryl N Jones,James Mcbroom

doi:10.1016/j.annale.2021.100025

Emily K Flower, Georgette Leah Burns + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annale.2021.100025

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Abstract

Animal welfare is a significant issue in wildlife tourism and is becoming an important component in tourists' decisions. This study explored the type of tourists who most likely visit different elephant tourism venues and compared tourist attitudes pre-and post-visit. We surveyed 132 tourists at 12 venues in Thailand. We found that participant age was the clearest indicator for the type of venue they were likely to visit and that home location and welfare standards at venues had the greatest effect on attitudes post-visit. Results suggest elephant welfare can be an important factor for some tourists; therefore, efforts should be made to increase public awareness of the issues within elephant tourism venues which could lead to positive attitude and behaviour change.

Highlights

Wildlife tourism provides an opportunity for close interactions with nature and wildlife, strengthening the emotional connection people develop during these experiences and fostering pro-environmental behaviour (Ballantyne, Packer, & Sutherland, 2011)
The participants’ home location had the greatest effect on their altruistic behaviour, followed by the welfare standards at the elephant tourism venue they visited (Statements 5 and 6). These results indicate that participants who visited elephant tourism venues with the highest observed welfare standards were more concerned about animal welfare and protection than all other participants, a finding reported by Kontogeorgopoulos (2009b), and were more likely to volunteer and donate money than participants who visited elephant tourism venues with the lowest observed welfare standards
This study involved surveying 132 tourists before and after they visited an elephant tourism venue in Thailand to determine whether the experience made a difference to their attitudes

Summary

Introduction

Wildlife tourism provides an opportunity for close interactions with nature and wildlife, strengthening the emotional connection people develop during these experiences and fostering pro-environmental behaviour (Ballantyne, Packer, & Sutherland, 2011). Some of the most popular forms of this type of tourism are based in Asia. For example, has experienced significant growth in international tourism with visitor numbers increasing from 10 million in 2003 to 39.8 million in 2019 (Vanhaleweyk, 2019). Most tourists visiting Thailand have been from the US and Europe; Chinese tourists greatly surpass visitors from any other country, comprising 27.6% of all international arrivals to Thailand in 2019 (Cohen, 2017; Konto georgopoulos, 1998; Vanhaleweyk, 2019). A significant factor in this growth appears to be the increased popularity of visiting and interacting with elephants in captivity (Bansiddhi et al, 2018). One study reported that 40% of tourists surveyed in Thailand had ridden, or planned to ride, an elephant during their visit, equating to approximately 12.8 million elephant rides in 2015 (Schmidt-Burbach, 2016)

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