Consumers are increasingly demanding sustainable and responsible travel opportunities that don’t cause harm to wildlife. With over 70 years of experience in protecting animals, our team can help you ensure that your offerings respect animals and the people whose livelihoods may depend on them, while still providing a unique wildlife experience.
We’ve partnered with some of Canada and the world’s biggest travel companies to remove harmful animal attractions from their supply chains.
We've continued supporting these companies to stop unacceptable animal practices in local areas.
Are you ready to take the first step towards becoming a wildlife-friendly travel company?
Around the world, hundreds of thousands of wild animals are suffering for tourist entertainment such as elephants used for rides, tiger selfies, walks with lions, monkey shows, and swimming with dolphins.
These ‘once-in-a-lifetime' opportunities for a tourist means a lifetime of suffering for animals.
As a member of the travel industry, you have the power to help protect these animals. By implementing a robust animal welfare policy, you can help travellers make responsible decisions and help drive down the demand for activities involving animal cruelty.
Today's travellers are choosing trips based on how ethical and animal-friendly they are. Our polling has time and again revealed the dramatic shift in travellers’ attitudes. They are becoming more aware of the cruelty involved in captive wildlife tourism.
* World Animal Protection 2019, commissioned to Kantar TNS, global online survey of 12,000 people across 12 countries (Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, Sweden, the UK, China, India, Thailand, Canada, the USA, Australia, and Brazil)
**World Animal Protection 2022, commissioned to Savanta, global online survey of 23,726 people across 15 countries (Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, Sweden, the UK, Spain, South Africa, Kenya, China, India, Thailand, Canada, the USA, Australia, and Brazil)
Travel companies of all sizes can meet their customers’ needs while helping to put an end to cruel wildlife entertainment. If you’re confused about what exactly is ‘wildlife-friendly tourism’ or are not sure where to start, don’t worry because we’re here to help.
We are here to share our expertise with travel companies like yours and help you ensure that your offerings don't perpetuate animal cruelty, while still ensuring unique wildlife experiences.
Report
This report exposes venues sourcing dolphins from Taiji and travel companies supporting them. We urge these companies to cut ties with Taiji-linked venues and end captive dolphin tourism, reflecting a broader commitment to wildlife-friendly practices and ending cruelty in the tourism industry.
Report
This report evaluates 11 travel companies on animal welfare policies, consumer engagement, and wildlife-friendly practices. It reveals that most companies continue promoting exploitative attractions, like elephant rides and dolphin shows, while offering recommendations to improve transparency, accountability, and ethical tourism alternatives for wildlife protection.
Report
This report examines the conditions of nearly 3,000 elephants at 220 tourist venues across Asia, including Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and India. Conducted between 2014 and 2016, the study includes all identified venues in most countries and a selection from India, revealing widespread exploitation in the tourism industry.
You can help build a responsible, sustainable future for the tourism industry while meeting customer needs and helping end captive wildlife entertainment for good.
Here are seven easy steps to become a responsible travel company that protects wildlife:
Create a policy and action plan that addresses wildlife protection throughout your operations and supply chain. With guidance from us, ask your suppliers to plan a phase out of any activities and attractions that are no longer acceptable as part of your product offers. A good policy will help ensure you are assessing animal-based tourism consistently with the latest scientific information and mitigate the risk of being criticized for not doing enough.
Activities that negatively impact animal welfare and the conservation of species in the wild, and that can be of high risk to the health and safety of your travellers include direct interaction with wild animals and wild animal performances.
Assess the value of these activities and start to look for non-animal and ethical animal alternatives, such as watching animals from a safe and respectful distance in their natural habitats, Wildlife Heritage Areas or at a genuine sanctuary where the animals are not bred in captivity or traded. These alternatives allow travelers to enjoy wildlife in their natural habitats without causing harm or stress.
Start conversations with your suppliers to help them understand that change is needed and that you are looking for responsible alternatives to replace wildlife entertainment activities. Remember that while ethical experiences exist, a company like yours can help phase out wildlife entertainment by asking ground suppliers to stop commercial breeding and trade while improving the conditions of those animals already in captivity.
We are happy to offer you training modules, checklists and tools that will allow your staff to identify cruel attractions and activities, understand truly ethical wildlife experiences, and own your company’s animal welfare policy.
Speak out about your company’s commitment to animal welfare and educate your customers on how to be animal-friendly travellers. Education is vital to shift demand towards responsible tourism.
Sign the World Animal Protection pledge to phase out any form of wildlife entertainment, demonstrating your dedication to cruelty-free tourism.
We're here to guide and support you along the way, drop us an email today. Together, we can end the suffering of captive wild animals in tourism.
Wildlife Heritage Areas is a global program that we developed with the World Cetacean Alliance that recognizes global destinations that offer responsible wildlife-watching tourism. These destinations incorporate high standards of animal welfare, sustainability, and nature conservation to help ensure wildlife, ecosystems, and communities can survive and thrive together.
Each area goes through an application process developed by the Wildlife Heritage Network of specialist NGOs, wildlife experts, responsible tourism companies, and local communities. The ultimate goal of this initiative is to provide travel companies like yours and tourists with examples of identifying and supporting responsible wildlife tourism destinations with high standards of animal welfare, biodiversity conservation, and community well-being.
Wildlife Heritage Areas are places where a deep and respectful connection exists between a guardian community and a wild species, species group, or habitat.
To cater to the demand for elephant attractions, thousands of elephants are being taken from the wild or bred in captivity, beaten into submission, and forced to suffer in the name of wildlife tourism. However, there is a way for tourist venues to be commercially viable while being elephant friendly.
Over the past few years, many such venues are increasingly shifting away from cruelty and are transitioning to elephant-friendly venues that provide responsible elephant experiences to tourists. The transition allows elephants to be free to behave as they would in the wild; free to roam the valley, graze, and bathe in mud, dust, and water.
With help from us and some leading travel companies, two elephant venues ChangChill and Following Giants in Thailand have transitioned into elephant-friendly and stopped direct visitor interactions with their resident animals. They offer a better life for the elephants and a unique experience for travellers without the inherent cruelty of direct interactions.
These places provide a natural habitat and safe environment that meet the highest welfare requirements for their resident elephants.
We support genuine wildlife sanctuaries around the world to help care for previously exploited animals that cannot be returned to the wild. Until the exploitation of these animal's end, they need responsible care.
We partnered with Asociatia Milioane de Prieteni, an animal association in Romania, to create and manage Europe’s largest bear sanctuary. The sanctuary was created to facilitate the legal confiscation of captive bears from poor welfare conditions and ensure the lifetime care of those bears. As part of their fundraising program, the sanctuary is open to paying visitors since mid-2013 in a way that does not adversely affect the welfare of the bears.
These sites offer large natural habitats and expert care for rescued bears to live out their lives in peace.
Become a responsible travel company today.