Tourists’ Reactions To Non-Human Animals
The Caribbean tourist industry has been reluctant to collaborate with animal advocates, despite complaints from visitors and claims suggesting that concerns about the treatment of animals can adversely affect tourism. This study interviewed Caribbean tourists to assess whether experiences reported to animal advocacy groups are representative of the concerns of tourists in general. Negative experiences were more likely to occur with domestic than with wild animals, and tourists who had strongly negative or positive experiences with animals were most conscious of roaming animals. The authors call for further research, and suggest that mandating and enforcing adequate care for animals may have a positive impact on tourist experiences.
[Abstract excerpted from original source>]
“Domestic pets were the most common animals seen by respondents in a survey of attitudes and perceptions towards non-human animals of 212 tourists in the Caribbean. These visitors indicated that the care offered animals caused some of them to change their view of the island visited. More tourists reported positive than negative interactions with animals, but unstructured interactions with domestic animals were associated with most of the negative comments. Research on tourist non-human animal interactions should include unstructured interactions if the real impact of tourists’ responses to animals is to be assessed.”
The link below will begin an automatic download of a PDF of this survey.