TripAdvisor Says No

TripAdvisor will no longer book travel to destinations that encourage direct human contact with wild or endangered animals.

The world’s largest travel website has banned destinations which encourage contact with wild or endangered animals. The company is also implementing an educational portal with information on animal welfare practices and advice and opinion from conservation charities. It’s a laudable step, but it’s still not enough to counter the cruel and exploitative practices encouraged by the tourism business.

We see it all the time. Your friends on Facebook riding an elephant in Thailand. That guy swimming and touching dolphins. The tiger petting “sanctuaries.” People love to be in contact with wild animals, and tourism businesses want to capitalize on that. The human-wild animal interaction has never been so readily available – all you have to do is pay up, and you can do it. Whether it’s petting tigers, riding elephants or whatever, you can do it for the right price. Naturally, this isn’t helping anyone.

Conservationists and biologists have long campaigned against this type of interactions, due to the stress and potential damage it has on the animals. This also leads to the creation of many so-called sanctuaries, which in fact are just places where animals are kept in miserable conditions solely for the purpose of making money. Is that what you would want in your vacation? TripAdvisor says no.