Wildlife tourism is a growing multimillion-dollar industry within the hospitality and tourism industry. Wildlife tourism, in its simplest sense, is the creation of tour packages for watching wild animals in their natural habitats, and is particularly important in African and South American countries, Australia, India, Canada, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, and Maldives, among others. This new book brings together the best voices in the field of wildlife tourism and provides a key understanding of wildlife tourism. It explores many important aspects of wildlife to date with related implications for various sectors, such as technology, education, corporations, and policymaking.

This book critically examines the many ways in which tourism and animals intersect, whether as tourist attractions, wildlife conservation tools, as travel companions or as meat to be eaten. It aims to make a meaningful contribution to the growing body of knowledge concerning the relationships between animals, tourists and the tourism industry. The chapters are organised into three themes: ethics and welfare; conflict, contradiction and contestation; and shifting relationships. Theoretically informed and empirically rich, the chapters examine topics such as whale watching, animal performances, the objectification and commodification of animals and stakeholder conflict among a range of others. It is hoped that the book will help to highlight key research questions and stimulate other researchers and students to reflect critically on the place of animals within tourism spaces, experiences, practices and structures.

Food is routinely given attention in tourism research as a motivator of travel. Regardless of whether tourists travel with a primary motivation for experiencing local food, eating is required during their trip. This book encompasses an interdisciplinary discussion of animals as a source of food within the context of tourism. Themes include the raising, harvesting, and processing of farm animals for food; considerations in marketing animals as food; and the link between consuming animals and current environmental concerns. Ethical issues are addressed in social, economic, environmental, and political terms. The chapters are grounded in ethics-related theories and frameworks including critical theory, ecofeminism, gustatory ethics, environmental ethics, ethics within a political economy context, cultural relativism, market construction paradigm, ethical resistance, and the Global Sustainable Tourism Criteria. Several chapters explore contradicting and paradoxical ethical perspectives, whether those contradictions exist between government and private sector, between tourism and other industries, or whether they lie within ourselves. Like the authors in Tourism Experiences & Animal Consumption: Contested Values, Morality, & Ethics, the authors in this book wrestle with a range of issues such as animal sentience, the environmental consequences of animals as food, viewing animals solely as a extractive resource for human will, as well as the artificial cultural distortion of animals as food for tourism marketing purposes. This book will appeal to tourism academics and graduate students as a reference for their own research or as supplementary material for courses focused on ethics within tourism.

Animals are among the most sought after tourist attractions and the impact on them is a matter of concern to an increasing number of people. Tourism and Animal Welfare uniquely addresses the issue of animal welfare within the tourism experience. It explores important foundations such as the meaning of 'animal welfare' and its relation to ethics, animal rights and human obligations to animals. It also explores the nature and diversity of the position and role of animals within tourism. From students and academics to vets and those working within the tourism industry, this book will provide an engaging and thought-provoking read. It will also appeal to those with an interest in animal welfare, particularly in relation to the tourism industry. 'Tales from the front line' is the section of the book that provides the reader with the views and experiences of animal welfare organisations, individual leaders, tourism industry organisations and operators, and academic experts. These case studies and opinion pieces will encourage the reader to consider their own position regarding animals in tourism and their welfare.

This book provides an interdisciplinary discussion of animals as a source of food within the context of tourism. It focuses on a range of ethical issues associated with the production and consumption of animal foods, highlighting the different ways in which animals are valued and utilised within different cultural and economic contexts. This book brings together food studies of animals with tourism and ethics, forming an important contribution to the wider conversation of human-animal studies.

This book outlines the status quo of worldwide wildlife tourism and its impacts on planning, management, knowledge, awareness, behaviour and attitudes related to wildlife encounters. It sets out to fill the considerable gaps in our knowledge on wildlife tourism, applied ecology, and environmental education, providing comprehensive information on and an interdisciplinary approach to effective management in wildlife tourism. Examining the intricacies, challenges, and lessons learned in a meaningful and rewarding tourism niche, this interdisciplinary book comprehensively examines the major potentials and controversies in the wildlife tourism industry. Pursuing an insightful, provocative and hands-on approach, it primarily addresses two questions: ‘Can we reconcile the needs of the wildlife tourism industry, biodiversity conservation, ecological learning and animal ethics issues?’ and ‘What is the Future of the Wildlife Tourism Industry?’. Though primaril y intended as a research text, it also offers a valuable resource for a broad readership, which includes university and training students, researchers, scholars, tourism practitioners and professionals, planners and managers, as well as the staff of government agencies.

This book is a landmark contribution to the rapidly growing field of wildlife tourism, especially in regard to its underpinning foundations of science, conservation and policy. Written by a number of environmental and biological scientists it explains the synergy between wildlife and tourism by drawing on their global experiences.