WHOSE EXPERIENCE MATTERS?
What Research Reveals About Animals, Tourists and Ethical Wildlife Encounters
A visitor’s enjoyment does not tell us whether a wildlife attraction benefits animals. Research on tourism ethics, online reviews and visitor preferences helps explain why responsible choices require more than a memorable encounter or a reassuring conservation claim.
A wildlife attraction can leave visitors delighted while leaving important questions unanswered. What did the encounter require of the animal? What happens outside public view? Does the attraction’s conservation message describe work that can be verified? When we judge an experience mainly by how it made us feel, we risk overlooking the lives of the animals who made it possible.
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Animal welfare and animal ethics ask different questions:
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In a 2020 paper published in Annals of Tourism Research, Caroline Winter reviewed 74 articles from ten tourism journals. The review examined different ethical approaches, including animal welfare, animal rights and weighing benefits against harms. It also explored how tourism can turn animals into commodities and how responsibilities extend across tourists, operators and regulators. The selected literature broadly challenged using animals for entertainment, while representing different perspectives rather than a single agreed position.
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For Keeping Wildlife Wild, an important distinction follows: assessing how an animal is cared for and asking whether a particular use of that animal is justified are related questions, but they are not identical. Food, veterinary treatment and suitable housing matter. So do the purpose of an encounter, the demands it places on an animal and the opportunities that animal has to avoid participation. This is an ethical interpretation of the research, rather than a finding that every attraction causes the same harm.
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A positive review is not a welfare assessment:
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A 2015 study by Tom Moorhouse and colleagues in PLOS ONE assessed welfare and conservation impacts across 24 types of wildlife tourist attraction and compared those assessments with TripAdvisor reviews. Eighteen attraction types received negative welfare assessments, and fourteen received negative conservation assessments. Yet only 7.8 percent of the tourist feedback analyzed was negative because of welfare or conservation concerns.
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The study offers a reason to look beyond popularity when evaluating an attraction. Its assessments drew on available literature and other sources, and standards could vary among individual facilities within an attraction type. Zoos, hunting and fishing attractions, and wildlife viewing in national parks and protected areas were excluded. These results therefore should not be applied to every wildlife venue or treated as a current audit of the industry. They do show that visitor approval and assessments of animal impacts can diverge.
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Information can influence stated preferences:
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In a separate 2017 experiment published in Global Ecology and Conservation, Moorhouse, Neil D’Cruze and David Macdonald presented mock attraction webpages to 3,224 respondents in China and four English-speaking countries. Asking respondents to consider welfare and conservation impacts before reviewing the attractions shifted stated preferences toward those designed to benefit wildlife. Providing impact ratings afterward also reduced stated willingness to attend attractions assessed as detrimental. Responses differed between the groups.
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This is an encouraging finding for public education, with a clear limitation: the experiment measured responses to hypothetical webpages, not purchases or visits. It supports placing credible information where people make decisions; it does not establish that a warning or educational post will necessarily change real-world behavior.
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An appealing image does not establish an ethical encounter:
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A newer study, first published online in August 2025 in Conservation Biology, examined responses from 2,427 people in six countries to depictions of wildlife tourist attractions. Positive emotional responses were strongly associated with stated willingness to visit. However, presenting an attraction through text, a photograph or different video lengths did not consistently change either emotional responses or willingness to attend.
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The distinction matters. These findings do not prove that watching a wildlife video causes someone to book an encounter. They do help explain why an appealing depiction deserves closer examination: feeling affection for an animal is not evidence that the activity shown benefits it. The study measured emotions and intentions, rather than actual attendance or animal welfare outcomes.
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What needs to change:
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Our practical response is to ask for evidence that addresses the animals’ interests. Operators making rescue, welfare or conservation claims should explain what those claims mean and provide documentation of their work. Travelers can ask where animals came from, how their needs are assessed, whether they can retreat from visitors and what happens when they can no longer participate in advertised activities. These are questions informed by the research, not a checklist tested by the studies above.
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Responsibility also belongs to tourism businesses and platforms that promote and sell wildlife experiences. Visitor satisfaction should be accompanied by scrutiny of animal care and claimed conservation benefits. For travelers, the opportunity is empowering: we can make the animals’ lives part of our decision before we spend, recommend or share. A memorable experience deserves to be judged by more than the memory it gives us.
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Sources:
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Winter, C. (2020). A review of animal ethics in tourism: Launching the Annals of Tourism Research curated collection on animal ethics in tourism.
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Moorhouse and colleagues (2015). The Customer Isn’t Always Right—Conservation and Animal Welfare Implications of the Increasing Demand for Wildlife Tourism.
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Moorhouse, D’Cruze and Macdonald (2017). The effect of priming, nationality and greenwashing on preferences for wildlife tourist attractions.
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Moorhouse, Elwin and D’Cruze. Emotional and attitudinal responses to social media depictions of human–wildlife interactions at wildlife tourist attractions. First published online in 2025; assigned to the 2026 volume of Conservation Biology.
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Related Reading:
How travelers can support wild animals rather than exploit them
Humane World for Animals shares practical tips for avoiding attractions, encounters and activities that profit from wildlife suffering.
Practical guidance for examining what your ticket—and your photograph—may support before choosing a wildlife encounter.
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Evidence • Education • Accountability
How You Can Help:
Awareness is the first step toward meaningful change. Help advance evidence-based education, transparency and accountability by sharing this article with others.
Together, we can encourage a more informed conversation about the treatment and protection of wildlife.
