Often, in cocktail conversation, the topic of work comes up and I am presented with familiar questions about being a professor in tourism, as well as the focus of my research: animals in tourism. Once I deploy my elevator speech and off-the-cuff list of how animals figure in the tourism industry in a variety of ways, I often witness someone’s lightbulb moment, which is followed by some kind of a confession about riding an elephant or eating some kind of regional dish. As I enter a new phase in my career, one focusing more on policy and legal interventions for animals in tourism, as well as knowledge distribution to the public, I’m compelled to write more about a topic I have been studying since 2014: the broad and varied space of animals in tourism. As I reflect on where I want this new phase to take me, I am reminded of why addressing tourism holistically — as researchers and advocates — is a critical agenda to continue pursuing.

In 2012, Dr. David Fennell published the book Tourism and Animal Ethics [Editor’s note: an expanded second edition, linked above, was published in 2024], summarizing specific cases of animal exploitation and suffering within the tourism industry. While many other scholars had written about particular examples of animals involved in tourism, and the damage that tourism activity can cause to animal behavior and habitat, the book called broad attention to the fact that the use of animals in tourism was of a scale, frequency, and breadth that it should be addressed as an all-inclusive topic. Moreover, the book created connections between the multiple uses of animals within the tourism industry, demonstrating that these tourism activities could be unified under one umbrella for the sake of advocacy and research.

Between the publication of the first and second edition of the book, the scope of research about animals in tourism has grown significantly. While Dr. Fennell’s book was not the sole impetus for this, it did provide a critical mass of proof that the exploitation of animals in tourism is a category worthy of significant attention. The tourism industry is, by its nature, broad and segmented, which keeps the public from understanding its full scope because we tend to focus on one sector at a time, for example, lodging or cruises. But travel and tourism as a broad category is an economic driver for animal exploitation and suffering in myriad ways.

The products sold in tourism are experiences, and many of the common examples that we already think of involving animal-human interactions also show potential for advocacy opportunities. To consider the full range of tourist activities and settings that involve animals, we might include:

• Hunting and fishing
• Wildlife watching and photography tours
• Animals in captivity
• The use of ambassador animals within environmental education
• Wild animal sanctuaries and farm animal refuges
• Eating animals as food/exotic or endangered animals as a culinary delicacy
• Using animal parts or by-products as souvenirs and gifts
• Animal selfies
• Using animal parts or by-products in traditional medicines
• Animals in rituals or festivals
• Animal fighting (human vs. animal/animal vs. animal)
• Animals in sports and racing
• “Swimming with” experiences
• Animals used in portage, pulling, or riding
• Local stray animals at destinations

The items listed above sometimes overlap with one another, and each ‘category’ of use can be broken down even further. For example, animals in captivity may include those found in circuses, zoos, aquariums, aquatic animal parks, animal performances, petting zoos, animal fights, rodeos, and even animals used in sexual acts. Many animal advocacy organizations focus on only one type of activity to have the most effective impact with limited resources.

To have the maximum impact with our animal advocacy efforts, however, we have good reason to begin to zoom out and focus on tourism more holistically, that is, to acknowledge and address:

1. the broader motivations of the traveler;
2. the economic importance of the industry for local tourism businesses at any given destination;
3. the interconnections between tourism and other forms of animal exploitation and habitat damage; and
4. the intermediaries within the tourism supply chain; that is, to do advocacy work in the vast range of businesses between the two end points of tourist (the demand side) and destination (the supply side). I speak more about these intermediaries below.

Additionally, not all tourism activities involving animals would be considered negative to the animal, for example, tourists contribute to many productive conservation-based tourism programs that include citizen science, philanthropic travel, or volunteer experiences. In some cases, it may be possible to minimize animal suffering by “shifting” the tourism activities that are consumptive to ones that are restorative.

Another reason to consider tourism as a whole rather than in discreet parts is because tourism activity is embedded into the dynamics of community life. If we are fortunate, some of us get to take leisure trips every so often, and so travel can be seen as special and “apart from” everyday life. However, when viewed from the perspective of a community or region (that is, the destination), tourism is far from being a special activity outside of normal economic and community activity. For so many places around the world, it is one of the main local economic drivers, if not the lifeblood of a community. Basic infrastructure such as roads, water, and sewer services, small businesses, trails and greenspace, and arts programs developed at a local level can be motivated by attracting tourists as much as it is motivated by creating quality of life for residents.

Within North Carolina for example, where I live, tourism’s economic impact in 2023 was $35.6 billion, which means that $97 million per day was injected into the economy by visitors. That spending also adds $7.1 million per day to state ($3.7 million) and local ($3.4 million) tax revenues, saving each North Carolina household $518 on average in taxes as a direct result of this offset. Additionally, a quarter million people in North Carolina alone derived their income directly from tourism.

Even when no animals are directly involved, tourism is an enormous economic engine driving many policy decisions and economic development strategies at a local and regional level. Many people are involved and much money is at stake. Animals get “caught up” in this industry in different ways according to the sector they are in: lodging, dining, attractions, transportation, retail, and others. The focus of making the industry better from an animal advocacy standpoint (or even from a “sustainability” standpoint) has largely fallen on the two ends of the tourism spectrum — campaigns and legal interventions aimed at the supply side (the hotels, attractions, and food businesses) or educational campaigns aimed at demand reduction (the traveling public).

However, the tourism intermediaries that make up the supply chain in between the destination and the tourists consist of hundreds of thousands of tour operators, guides, travel advisors, trade associations, travel media, and influencers. They can and should be targeted through the strategic application of research, education, negotiations, advocacy, and public relations pressure, to encourage widespread policy changes. These actors are being approached in some instances (for example, through education and policy campaigns by PETA and Wild Welfare) but are overall overlooked as targets for interventions.

The takeaway here is twofold: First, there are many players within the tourism supply chain complicit in encouraging and expanding animal abuse that aren’t currently being addressed. Second, we have to start thinking about tourism holistically, because if we continue to split it up into parts without addressing its sum, then we may only achieve minor victories as we chip away at pieces without addressing the root cause. As my research evolves into my next phase of inquiry and advocacy, I hope to contribute to unifying the discussion about animals in tourism within the animal protection movement just like Fennell did within the realm of tourism research.