Be part of the change

Covid-19 has challenged us to create change. The pandemic has shone a harsh spotlight on how people treat wild animals. The catastrophic impact of wildlife exploitation has affected our health, economies, planet and the travel industry, in addition to causing the suffering of millions of animals worldwide. There can be no going back to what once was.

As a member of the travel industry, you can help prevent another pandemic, secure your livelihoods and help keep wild animals in the wild by becoming a wildlife-friendly travel company. This involves phasing out wildlife entertainment from your supply chain and offering responsible tourist experiences instead.

At World Animal Protection, we work with the tourism industry to promote these solutions. We share our expertise and tools to help travel companies ensure their offers respect animals, while still providing unique wildlife experiences. In 2020, in order to help companies make this change, we launched our Tracking the Travel Industry report. This report, the first of its kind, compares the animal welfare commitments of 14 of the world’s leading travel companies.

Rebuilding the industry, for good

How you can help rebuild the tourism industry to be more responsible, meet customers’ needs and help end captive wildlife entertainment

Elephant rides, tiger selfies, walks with lions, monkey shows, swimming with dolphins – each ‘once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for a tourist means a lifetime of suffering for animals.

As travellers are becoming more aware of the cruelty involved in these and other wild animal experiences, their attitudes are changing dramatically.

Increasingly, travellers are choosing holidays based on how animal-friendly they are:

• 87% believe wild animals belong in the wild where they can live naturally
• 85% would prefer to see animals in the wild
• 81% think people should not make an income from keeping wild animals if the animals suffer

As a responsible leader in the travel industry, we know you want to adapt to continue to provide meaningful customer experiences.

It can be hard to tell what's truly wildlife-friendly in tourism, let alone how to incorporate this into a business, which is why we are here to help.

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Change is possible

Together with World Cetacean Alliance, Whale & Dolphin Conservation, Humane Society International and Born Free Foundation, we developed a united vision for whales and dolphins in tourism. The travel industry can play a key role in a responsible future for whales and dolphins, by promoting only experiences where they can be viewed through responsible, respectful wild-watching experiences and sharing our vision that keeping these intelligent and complex animals in captivity for entertainment is unacceptable.

For those currently in captivity, we support the development of sanctuaries and ending captive breeding and wild capture to ensure this is the last generation of captive whales and dolphins.

With help from us and some leading travel companies, two elephant venues in Thailand have transitioned into elephant-friendly and stopped visitors directly interacting with their animals. Chang Chill and Following Giants offer a better life for the elephants and a unique experience for visitors without the inherent cruelty of direct interactions.

This video shares the story of how ChangChill was transformed.