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Tourism, animals & the vacant niche: a scoping review and pedagogical agenda
Current Issues In Tourism
Abstract
The topic of animal ethics has advanced in tourism studies since its inception in 2000, based on a diverse range of studies on species involvement, types of uses and contexts, level of engagement, states of animals, and theoretical perspectives. While there is still considerable scope to amplify research on animal-based tourism, a gap exists in tourism pedagogy amidst the field’s emphasis on a new expanding consciousness platform. We review the depth of existing scholarship on animal ethics in tourism and develop an agenda for advancing animal ethics pedagogy for the future. Our intent is to issue a call to action for curriculum committees, programme administrators, and educators to recognise and act on this critical moral domain in tourism education.
... In tourism research, scoping reviews have explored a range of topics, including the integration of popular culture tourism in local communities (Lerfald, 2024;Lundberg et al., 2024), wellness tourism (Majeed & Gon Kim, 2023), animal ethics in tourism (Fennell et al., 2024), sustainable tourism indicators (Rasoolimanesh et al., 2023;Shallwani et al., 2021), the role of second homes on rural development (Lerfald, 2024), tourist travel intentions before and during the pandemic (Seyfi et al., 2024), wilderness visitor use management (Thomsen et al., 2023), marine tourism (Spinelli & Benevolo, 2022), and digital innovation within museums (Tham et al., 2023). ...
... Several leisure and tourism scoping reviews cited in this paper failed to provide both a narrative description and a flow chart of their study selection process (Fennell et al., 2024;Lundberg et al., 2024;Thomsen et al., 2023). Furthermore, only a few studies (Shallwani et al., 2021;Wenzel et al., 2024) reported the involvement of a research team when screening and selecting studies. ...
... While most studies described their data charting process, a few provided no details (e.g. Fennell et al., 2024;Lundberg et al., 2024). Some studies described the collaborative development of a data charting form by the research team (e.g. ...
Scoping reviews are instrumental for synthesizing evidence and mapping research landscapes, but effective stakeholder engagement is also essential to ensure their relevance to both practice and policy. Despite this importance, stakeholder engagement in scoping reviews within leisure and tourism has been limited. This methodological paper presents the Co-Creation Scoping Review Framework (CSRF) to enhance collaborative knowledge creation. By expanding the traditional five-stage scoping review process to seven stages, the CSRF emphasizes stakeholder engagement, effectively bridging the gap between researchers and stakeholders. This approach enhances the relevance of scoping reviews for academic and practical applications. The framework promotes more inclusive research methods, ultimately improving knowledge mobilization and guiding future practice and research. The paper provides detailed guidance on implementing the CSRF, including a step-by-step approach and examples from recent scoping reviews in these fields, demonstrating how the CSRF could have been employed to engage stakeholders and increase the relevance of findings.
... Research on the role of animals in tourism began in the late 1990s and the early twenty-first century, with a considerable number of studies (Orams, 2002;Ryan, 1998;Viskovic, 1993). As research on animal-based tourism has expanded in depth and breadth, animal-based tourism seems to have transformed from conventional niche tourism to a form that is more accessible to the general public (Äijälä, 2021;Bersaglio and Margulies, 2022;Bertella, 2021;Fennell, 2022aFennell, , 2022bFennell et al., 2024;Meng et al., 2024). There is a growing body of academic research linking animal-based tourism to ethics, moral codes, animal welfare, and individuals' responsible behavior (Fennell, 2014(Fennell, , 2020(Fennell, , 2023Font et al., 2019;Meng et al., 2024;Wattanacharoensil et al., 2024). ...
... There is a growing body of academic research linking animal-based tourism to ethics, moral codes, animal welfare, and individuals' responsible behavior (Fennell, 2014(Fennell, , 2020(Fennell, , 2023Font et al., 2019;Meng et al., 2024;Wattanacharoensil et al., 2024). Ethics pedagogy has gained greater attention in animal-based tourism, which relates to aspects including species involvement in different settings, level of engagement, and the emotions and states of animals (Fennell et al., 2024). Amid the growing awareness of the ethical implications of animal-based recreational activities, discussion of travelers' responsible behavior in relation to animal-based tourism is consistently evolving (Fakfare et al., 2023, Fennell andSheppard, 2021;Meng et al., 2024;Wattanacharoensil et al., 2024). ...
... Amid the growing awareness of the ethical implications of animal-based recreational activities, discussion of travelers' responsible behavior in relation to animal-based tourism is consistently evolving (Fakfare et al., 2023, Fennell andSheppard, 2021;Meng et al., 2024;Wattanacharoensil et al., 2024). Environmental education in animal-based tourism should receive more attention from both the academic and industry aspects of tourism (Caplow, 2021;Fennell et al., 2024). ...
Ethical concerns about animal-based tourism are raising ongoing attention from the international community, and investigation of tourists’ ethically responsible behaviors in animal eco-tourism is limited. This study investigated the formation of ethically responsible behaviors by integrating constituents from the value-belief-norm (VBN) theory, the norm-activation model (NAM), and the theory of planned behavior (TPB), including biospheric value, altruistic value, ethical beliefs, awareness of ethical issues, ascribed responsibility, personal norm, attitude, social norm, and behavioral intentions with regard to animal-based tourism. The cultural involvement of Confucian harmony and media coverage were found to positively influence awareness of ethical issues. The proposed research framework was further optimized by identifying a moderator, described as perceptions of animal protection. Methodologically, along with structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis, this study also used fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to evaluate asymmetric configurations (causal recipes) and necessary conditions for predicting different levels of behavioral intentions in animal-based tourism.
... When these initiatives resonate with tourists, they often share their experiences through their communication networks (such as social media platforms), potentially impacting the reputation of the attraction. This, in turn, may prompt tourism operators to implement reactive measures (Fennell et al., 2024). Existing studies (Barboza & Veludo-de-Oliveira, 2023;Flower et al., 2021) have highlighted the effectiveness of advocacy and boycott campaigns in altering consumer behaviours. ...
... The welfare of animals in captivity has been the subject of public debate (Fennell et al., 2024;Ijeomah et al., 2011;Pratt & Suntikul, 2016), which has centred on concerns about animals and mammals performing stunts and behaving in unnatural ways as a form of entertainment. Marine parks strongly emphasise their role in animal conservation and educating the public on the plight of animals (Ballantyne et al., 2009), particularly about animals and marine mammals that are endangered or threatened with extinction. ...
This paper delves into the ethical dimensions and public perceptions surrounding dolphin tourism, both seeing them in the wild and in the marine park. Using a comprehensive analysis of social media data over seven years, we focus on dolphins as a central element of marine mammal tourism, investigating how digital narratives shape tourist attitudes and behaviours towards these intelligent creatures. Informed by a multi-method data analysis approach, this study reveals an "echo chamber" effect in social media, perpetuating selective exposure to information that aligns with visitor motivations: hedonism, relevance and reverence. The theoretical contributions of this research extend the existing literature on wildlife tourism by offering a deeper understanding of how public sentiments towards animals in tourism settings evolve and influence tourism practices. The finding underscores the need for informed, ethical communication strategies that consider the complex interplay of entertainment, education, and conservation in wildlife tourism. ARTICLE HISTORY
... Despite a demonstrable interest in ecocentrism, animal rights, and ecofeminism, the tourism literature has engaged less with animal welfare as a branch of science than it has with the ethical position of animal welfare, especially in assessing the state of animals as they attempt to cope within contrived environments [13,47,60,61]. Research from Winter reviewed seventy-four articles on animal ethics, welfare, and tourism in ten tourism journals and identified a spectrum of ethical positions, including animal rights, ecofeminism, animal welfare, ecocentrism, utilitarianism, and instrumentalism [2]. ...
Wildlife sanctuaries have gained popularity in recent years as settings for research into human–animal relations, captive wildlife tourism, and rehabilitation. While scholars from animal studies, ethics, geography, and ethnography disciplines have turned their attention to sanctuaries, there is still limited engagement from the fields of tourism, conservation, and animal welfare sciences. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, this paper addresses the ‘sanctuary gap’ by offering a synthesis of the existing research related to wildlife sanctuary tourism. To this end, the paper suggests preliminary definitions for wildlife sanctuary tourism and wildlife sanctuary attractions, as well as a typology of sanctuaries along a spectrum from greenwashed to just. It aims to illuminate the shadowy presence of wildlife sanctuaries across multiple disciplines and identify areas for future research. The discussion considers how sanctuaries are well-suited to research on multispecies communities, as well as the conservation and welfare of wild animals.
... We demonstrate how attempts to improve the lives of wild animals are limited by a lack of evidence-based research on wild animal welfare, best practices for captive management, and wildlife rehabilitation [43,44]. This is compounded by illiteracy amongst tourists and tourism operators around animal welfare [16,38,45,46]. Third, we make a case for animal stakeholdership, given the limited (to non-existent) stakeholdership afforded to most animals in the industry despite being co-participants and co-creators of the tourism experience. ...
The objective of this paper is to highlight animal stakeholders, evidenced-based best practices, care ethics, and compassion as essential components of sustainable wildlife tourism. These tenets stem from an animal geography lens, which is well-positioned for studies of animal-based tourism and transspecies caregiving. As a conceptual contribution, this paper presents a theory synthesis that ‘stays with the trouble’ of wildlife tourism and identifies ways to ‘bring animals in’. Our approach could be described as multispecies, critical, and socio-ecological. We argue that the trouble with wildlife tourism writ large includes nonhuman suffering and biodiversity loss, unethical and unevidenced practices, gaps in the knowledge of wildlife welfare, and limited engagement with animals as stakeholders. We then present four ways to ‘bring animals in’ as co-participants in wildlife tourism research and practice. This involves enfranchising animals as stakeholders in wildlife tourism, buttressed by ethics of care, best practices, and a commitment to improved outcomes along the conservation-welfare nexus. Finally, we consider the extent to which wildlife sanctuary tourism serves as a further problem or panacea that balances the conservation and welfare of wild animals. The result of our theory synthesis is the promotion of a more care-full and compassionate paradigm for wildlife tourism, which draws from diverse scholarships that contribute, conceptually and practically, to the underserved niches of wildlife welfare, rehabilitation, and sanctuary research.
The planet is facing social-environmental crises that include climate change, biodiversity loss, mass extinctions, and unsustainable consumption and production. These issues are rooted in hegemonic patriarchy and built on practices of continued inequity. Wildlife tourism could address some of these issues, but instead it is exacerbated by social-ecological challenges and various levels of hierarchical injustices. The SDGs were intended to facilitate solutions to these global problems. Yet, they do not address the fundamental underpinnings of the anthropocentric injustices exacerbating these systemic challenges, in part because they were generated via the hegemonic processes that allow for these injustices to continue. Using a transdisciplinary intersectional ecofeminist approach to analyze the SDGs, we propose a theory that adopts a posthuman ethic—Wildlife Equity as a foundation to guide principles and apply to policies that rigorously illuminate the continued injustices that are driving the decline of livelihoods for all sentient beings on Earth.
Kopi luwak, known as the world's most expensive coffee, is made from coffee beans that have been partially digested by the Asian palm civet (Paradoxurus hermaphroditus). This study aims to assess how tourists perceive the inclusion of captive civets within curated Balinese kopi luwak tours by analyzing 3,364 reviews of 25 sites housing live civets, posted to the tourist review platform, TripAdvisor, between October 2011 and March 2020. Overall, reviewers concerned with animal welfare were more likely to leave a negative review. Two emergent themes, encounters with caged animals and encounters with sleeping animals, are explored through a multispecies lens. Civet displays are discussed in relation to passive and true animal encounter, animal dignity, shared suffering, and cognitive dissonance. Although caged practices persist across sites, results also indicate new forms of concealed cruelty as civets are likely sedated to enable photographic souvenirs.
The remoteness and isolation of South American tabletop mountain (tepui) summits may protect against infections that underpin global amphibian declines. Increases in recreational pressure in such unspoiled destinations, and in isolated ecosystems globally, pose a poorly understood risk of wildlife disease introduction, especially in supposedly immunologically naïve communities. We here report the first observed chytrid infections in the Pantepui biogeographical region. Infections significantly correlate with proximity to the nearest basic tourist infrastructure in four endemic amphibians occurring on tepui summits and their slopes. Phylogenetic relationships and environmental context suggest a high risk of severe and irreversible population declines in unique, early branching amphibians. These findings advocate for an urgent control of recreational pressure in isolated, highly vulnerable ecosystems
Tourism and recreational activities now threaten the conservationConservation status of 21% of the marine mammalMarine mammals species recognized by the IUCN. In the past two decades, concerted efforts have been made to better understand the biological relevance of behavioral responses of marine mammals to whale-watchingWhale watchingdisturbanceDisturbance within theoretical frameworks. These frameworks aim to evaluate how behavioral changes caused by disturbance may result in populationPopulation effects by affecting critical life functionsLife functions, such as survivalSurvival, reproductionReproductionand feedingFeeding. Most recent efforts have made it more feasible to quantify how consequences of a disturbance can affect vital ratesVital rates and, in turn, populationPopulation level consequences. These efforts have come hand-in-hand with the advent of innovative researchResearchtechnologyTechnology and analytical laboratory approaches which are providing previously unobtainable data streams, including detailed information on individualIndividualbody conditionBody condition, energy expenditureEnergy expenditureand energy acquisitionEnergy acquisition. Novel techniques in the fields of metabolomicsMetabolomicsand endocrinologyEndocrinology are providing tools to integrate the many dimensions of disturbance-related changes in the body to derive measures of ecological healthEcological health. Lastly, new modeling techniques are now available that link changes in behavior to changes in healthHealth, vital ratesVital ratesand populationPopulationdynamicsPopulation dynamics. Our chapter discusses various managementManagement approaches to the industry and highlights that it was only in 2020 that the promising concept of maximum sustainable tourismTourismyieldMaximum Sustainable Tourism Yield (MSTY) (MSTY) was explicitly stated as a management value to track when regulating and managing whale watching. The recent advances in analytical and laboratory approaches coupled with introduction of the MSTY concept provide promising pathways to both evaluate biological significant impacts of whale-watchingWhale watching and new managementManagement approaches. We argue that it is important to consider the outlook for marine mammalMarine mammalstourismTourism moving forward, with an understanding of the recent and perhaps current global tourismGlobal tourism context; i.e., the industry was paralyzed by the imposition of unprecedented border closures and travel restrictions caused by the COVID-pandemic. The focus now falls upon the potential to rebuild a new, post-COVID-19 tourismTourism system. One school of thought in rebuilding arises in response to growing concerns expressed about the global tourismGlobal tourism system prior to the pandemic. Concerns include high economic leakageEconomic leakage, environmental sustainabilityEnvironmental sustainability issues, and compromised social license driven by over-tourismOver-tourism. There is a unique opportunity to reset the tourismTourism system toward an emerging nature tourismNature tourism paradigm that encourages and supports businesses to be accountable for positive environmental, social, culturalCultural and economic outcomes. It will be necessary for marine mammal tourismTourism to embrace a paradigmatic shift from exhaustive (volume growth) to regenerative tourismTourism which, rather than depleting the natureNature upon which businesses depend, will be geared toward building natural capital over time. This will require a reconceptualization of visitor experiences, which may be augmented through new technologiesTechnology. Virtual realityVirtual Reality (VR)(VR) and augmented realityAugmented Reality (AR) (AR) are powerful tools that allow people to achieve immersive experiences of nature without the need for travel. VR/AR offer the industry opportunities to engage groups that may be constrained by physical or age-related disabilities, as well as those who may be facing travel restrictions, or confronting moral decisions associated with carbon emissionsCarbon emissions, or direct/indirect impacts arising from tourist encounters with wildWild animals. VR/AR may overcome the conundrum for close encounters with wildlife without having to expose animals repeatedly to close encounters with people. We argue that there is a pathway to move forward with a less biological impactive whale watch industry in light of the more-informed science basis available coupled with new low-impact marine mammalMarine mammalstourismTourism opportunities. But will the marine mammal tourismTourism industry continue to be fueled by a ‘business-as-usual’ approach which is based on economic prosperity? Or will the industry follow a more progressive all-encompassing approach that embraces and supports tourismTourism to be accountable for positive environmental, social, and culturalCultural, as well as economic outcomes? We argue: be creative, be bold, and be progressive.
Anthrozoology is an emergent field concerned with the study of human-animal interactions
and relationships. As an emergent interdisciplinary field, Anthrozoology is in its infancy regarding methodological practice. For Anthrozoologists, research involves both human and animal as active participants and actors within ethnographic investigation. Concerned with the ethical implications of research beyond the human species, Anthrozoologists are often faced with navigating how to protect the interests of animals both in relation to the collection of data and in dissemination of results.
Presented by postgraduate researchers from Exeter’s Anthrozoology as Symbiotic Ethics (EASE) working group, this paper reflects upon the issue of animal privacy as encountered by observers of cross-species interaction. Building upon professional and personal experience of witnessing human-animal encounter, we posit key questions regarding the ethics of animal privacy: How can researchers obtain informed consent from their non-human interlocuters? How can animal privacy be protected during ethnographic investigation? And to what extent are researchers obliged to protect the privacy of their otherthan-human research participants post observations? With far reaching consequences for animal welfare, conservation, and symbiotic trans-species relations, such questions are important to address during the emergence of this exciting field of more than human enquiry and to set high standards of ethical practices for application into the future
The Ethics of Privacy in Anthrozoological Investigations presented at ANIMAL / PRIVACY: Historical and Conceptual Approaches - Online Workshop 8 Nov 2021.
ANIMAL / PRIVACY was organised by
The Centre for Privacy Studies, University of Copenhagen (Funded by the Danish National Research Foundation): https://teol.ku.dk/privacy/about-privacy/
The Kent Animal Humanities Network, University of Kent: https://research.kent.ac.uk/kentanimalhumanitiesnetwork/
https://animalprivacy.wordpress.com/
This paper examines the use of the term "feral" as a form of control over other animals. The concept of this "power word" is explored within the context of what it means for those who find themselves labelled as such. As a prefix, "feral" is used by various interest groups to justify the treatment of subpopulations of species, particularly with regards to wildlife conservation. The "feral" label differentiates animals that are perceived as being out of place or out of control from those who are kept as companions or commodities. "Feral" is most often used to describe an unwelcome presence or noise, and can be contrasted to alternative words, such as "wild" or "free-living" that control how these presences are perceived by humans.
The language of domestication enables humans to wield power over otherthanhuman animal lives. In some cases, being labelled “domesticated” ensures a life free of worry regarding food, water, and shelter. In others, “domestication” embodies a loss of agency, wildness, and potentially life. Companion animals such as cats find themselves at the center of debates regarding their freedom, reproductive agency, and even their status as domesticates. Others, such as captive elephants, are trapped in liminal spaces by virtue of their labels — “endangered,” “domesticated,” “tamed,” or simply “livestock.” As humans venture further into the world of biotech, these labels become increasingly opaque. With the introduction of hybrid xenobots, transgenic organisms grown of various stem cells, and machine-implanted, sentient species built to serve various functions, we are facing the potential that the word domestication will be again transformed allowing humans to further control the future of otherthanhuman bodies. tient beings they did act in ways the trainers could not predict or control. In so doing, in all cases but refusal to attack they contributed to the excitement of events, and in the case of the elephants of the 55BCE games, even caused the normally hostile spectators to empathize with their plight. When Roman spectators or writers attributed human-like traits to animals who did extraordinary things they tacitly acknowledged animal agency, but this was not transformed into any general acceptance that animals might have any moral sense or cognitive abilities comparable in any way to humans.
The emergence of multiple variants of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus
2 (SARS-CoV-2) highlights the importance of possible animal-to-human (zoonotic) and human-toanimal
(zooanthroponotic) transmission and potential spread within animal species. A range of
animal species have been verified for SARS-CoV-2 susceptibility, either in vitro or in vivo. However,
the molecular bases of such a broad host spectrum for the SARS-CoV-2 remains elusive. Here, we
structurally and genetically analysed the interaction between the spike protein, with a particular
focus on receptor binding domains (RBDs), of SARS-CoV-2 and its receptor angiotensin-converting
enzyme 2 (ACE2) for all conceivably susceptible groups of animals to gauge the structural bases of the
SARS-CoV-2 host spectrum. We describe our findings in the context of existing animal infection-based
models to provide a foundation on the possible virus persistence in animals and their implications in
the future eradication of COVID-19.
Asian elephants and humans have long shared their lives, but recent changes in human perspectives on animal use have created ripples through the small country of Nepal. Captive elephants are caught in the crossfire between local communities, elephant owners, mahouts, and NGOs in debates over their treatment, health, welfare and use in tourism. In addition, zoonotic disease, natural disasters and political strife affect the lives of captive elephants and mahouts. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, elephants, caregivers and owners found themselves facing income loss, decreased welfare from housing and husbandry issues, and food shortages. Many owners sold elephants, fired mahouts, and “quit” the tourism industry. Others sought help from outside organizations, community members, and governmental agencies to retain ownership of what they viewed as valuable commodities. NGOs and grassroots organizations assisted in the hopes of keeping elephants in Nepal, thus preventing them from long, treacherous walks across the border and into situations where they might face further welfare decreases. This article combines elephant stable visits and interviews with mahouts, owners, NGO, and government staff between January 2019 and December 2021. It highlights the ongoing health and welfare challenges faced by elephants and mahouts in Nepal . .
Privacy is an essential consideration when designing interactive systems for humans. However, at a time when interactive technologies are increasingly targeted at non-human animals and deployed within multispecies contexts, the question arises as to whether we should extend privacy considerations to other animals. To address this question, we revisited early scholarly work on privacy, which examines privacy dynamics in non-human animals (henceforth “animals”). Then, we analysed animal behaviour literature describing privacy-related behaviours in different species. We found that animals use a variety of separation and information management mechanisms, whose function is to secure their own and their assets' safety, as well as negotiate social interactions. In light of our findings, we question tacit assumptions and ordinary practises that involve human technology and that affect animal privacy. Finally, we draw implications for the design of interactive systems informed by animals' privacy requirements and, more broadly, for the development of privacy-aware multispecies interaction design.
Despite the diversity of social situations in which cats live, the degree to which free-ranging cats (FRCs) are social is still debated. The aim of this review is to explore the literature on the social behavior of FRCs. A search of two major databases revealed that observations of intraspecies and interspecies social interactions have been conducted. The intraspecific social dynamics of FRCs differ based on group of cats surveyed. Some groups display strong social bonds and preferential affiliations, while other groups are more loosely associated and display little to no social interaction. Factors impacting FRC conspecific interactions include cat body size, cat social rank, cat individuality, cat age, relationship to conspecific (kin/familiar), cat sex, level of human caretaking, presence of food, the health of the individual, or sexual status of conspecifics. Interspecies interactions also occur with humans and wildlife. The human’s sex and the weather conditions on the day of interaction have been shown to impact FRC social behavior. Interactions with wildlife were strongly linked to the timing of cat feeding events. These findings support the idea that FRCs are “social generalists” who display flexibility in their social behavior. The social lives of FRCs exist, are complex, and deserve further study.
Digital surveillance technologies enable a range of publics to observe the private lives of wild animals. Publics can now encounter wildlife from their smartphones, home computers, and other digital devices. These technologies generate public-wildlife relations that produce digital intimacy, but also summon wildlife into relations of care, commodification, and control. Via three case studies, this paper examines the biopolitical implications of such technologically mediated human-animal relations, which are becoming increasingly common and complex in the Digital Anthropocene. Each of our case studies involves a different biopolitical rationale deployed by a scientific-managerial regime: (1) clampdown (wild boar); (2) care (golden eagle); and (3) control (moose). Each of these modalities of biopower, however, is entangled with the other, inaugurating complex relations between publics, scientists, and wildlife. We show how digital technologies can predetermine certain representations of wildlife by encouraging particular gazes, which can have negative repercussions for public-wildlife relations in both digital and offline spaces. However, there remains work to be done to understand the positive public-wildlife relations inaugurated by digital mediation. Here, departing from much extant literature on digital human-animal relations, we highlight some of these positive potentials, notably: voice, immediacy, and agency.
We investigated whether the welfare of domestic goats in an animal-visitor interaction experience at a zoo was affected by the presence and behavior of visitors. We considered how the number of visitors in the goats’ habitat and visitor proximity to the goats impacted goat behavior. We also considered the goats’ behavior toward visitors, use of retreat space, and whether the visitors’ interaction style, specifically, how the visitors groomed the goats, was predictive of changes in the goats’ behavior. We conducted 29 hr of focal follows on 7 domestic goats (Capra hircus) at Lincoln Park Zoo, and analyzed data using mixed effects models. We found that goats preferred to be in the visitor yard as visitor numbers increased, and goat behaviors did not change as visitor numbers increased to the maximum allowed (16 people). There were no differences in rates of conspecific aggression or affiliation based on visitor presence or visitor interactions. However, there was a decrease in feeding and increase in self-maintenance behaviors specifically while visitors were in close proximity and interacting with goats. Furthermore, visitor-directed behavior, specifically head tossing, was more common when visitors groomed goats in an improper way. Overall, this study demonstrates that domestic goat welfare was relatively unaffected by the simple presence of visitors when maximum visitor limits were in place and retreat options were available, but that goats were sensitive to visitor interaction styles. These findings support the idea that domestic goats may be appropriate candidates for human-visitor interaction programs under specific conditions.
During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Netflix aired the docuseries Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem, and Madness. This aligned with the United States declaring a national emergency and the beginning of stay-at-home orders. Netflix experienced a significant increase in viewership and a large number of responses to Tiger King's content from viewers and media outlets (e.g., Stoll 2021). In this article, we present an analysis of social media responses on the Netflix official Facebook page and online news articles associated with Tiger King published between 20 March 2020 and 30 March 2020. This thematic analysis reveals that public response was mainly related to expressions of sentiment, characters featured in the docuseries, and references to the show's content (e.g., specific scenes). We also identified character references, series content descriptions, and real-life events as themes within media sources. We conclude this article by discussing the potential for a 'Tiger King Effect' in the U.S. and the media's role in distributing human-animal related materials to the general public.
This book addresses the issue of animal welfare within the tourism experience. Part I of the book provides a conceptual and historical foundation upon which to analyse animal welfare and the position of animals in tourism, and how these two issues intersect. Part II consists of 14 opinion pieces that discuss various issues associated with animal welfare and tourism. These pieces, presented as individual chapters, are written by tourism operators, tourism organizations, animal welfare and conservation organizations and advocates, or academics with particular expertise in the area of animal welfare and tourism and links to the industry. Part III talks about the future of tourism and animal welfare and charts a potential path for the future of the welfare of animals in tourism and a related research agenda. The book has 19 chapters, and a subject and author index.
Simple Summary
Animals are an integral and important part of human life. It is clear that when traveling, tourists often choose places where animals are present. They look for places with wild animals more often. Our article introduces issues concerning the role of farm animals in the creation of agritourism products and the prospects of using animals in agritourism. On the one hand, farm animals are an additional source for people who run agritourism farms and make the stay of tourists in rural areas more attractive. The presence of livestock acts as a magnet, attracting more tourists to these farms and achieving higher returns on agritourism activities. However, among the reasons for the lack of contact with animals in agritourism offerings, farmers indicated: the lack of financial resources and the lack of conditions to provide the animals with adequate maintenance. It is worth introducing farm animals as a tourist attraction in agritourism offerings.
Abstract
Animals are an integral part of human life. Currently, they constitute a relevant factor contributing to the tourist experiences of individuals travelling for tourist purposes. Domestic (farm) animals constitute a tourist attraction, are a source of income for individuals running agritourism farms, and render the tourists’ stay in rural areas more attractive. It is important to maintain the welfare of livestock based on principles of sustainability. The authors conducted research among agritourism providers in Wielkopolska Voivodeship. The aim of the survey was to determine whether agritourism farms keep livestock, what species they are, and whether they are important in building an agritourism product and what the prospects are for using animals in agritourism. A questionnaire was used for the study. The use of a variety of animal species facilitates the maintenance of biodiversity on the farm. Our research shows that 57.3% of the analysed agritourism providers included animals. Additionally, we discovered that the presence of livestock acts as a magnet that draws more tourists towards the individuals running agritourism farms and thus causes them to obtain higher profit from the agritourism business. According to the surveyed individuals, the most influential reason for the absence of livestock on their farms was the lack of financial resources and conditions to provide the animals with proper maintenance. Such findings may prompt the introduction of livestock as a tourist attraction in agritourism in other regions.
The scant existent literature on the link between wildlife tourism and consumption relies on case studies and does not directly measure attitudes towards wildlife tourism or consumption. This paper uses empirical survey data (N = 12,378) from 12 countries in Europe, Asia, and the Americas to examine the links between wildlife tourism and wildlife consumption, with a particular focus on evaluating forms of wildlife tourism typically considered “non-consumptive.” The first set of analyses looked at the full sample and examined the relationships between wildlife tourism participation and (a) acceptability of wildlife consumption and (b) wildlife consumption behavior. The second set of analyses divided the sample by country and by location of the wildlife tourism activity (abroad or at home) and focused on the associations between participation in live animal encounters and wildlife consumption behavior. Models were built for two forms of wildlife consumption: eating/drinking wildlife and purchasing products/souvenirs made from animal parts. The results indicate that participation in entertainment-based live animal encounters is a strong correlate of increased wildlife consumption. Implications for wildlife tourism policies, wildlife consumption research, and wildlife crime prevention are discussed.
Research on animal ethics in tourism has gained traction but posthumanist approaches to wildlife (eco)tourism remain sparse. There has never been a more urgent need to redress this paucity in theory and practice. More than 60% of the world's wildlife has died-off in the last 50 years, 100 million-plus nonhuman animals are used for entertainment in wildlife tourist attractions (WTAs), more than one billion "wildlife" live in captivity, and some scholars argue that earth has entered its sixth mass extinction event known as the Anthropocene. This paper presents a posthumanist multispecies livelihoods framework (MLF) based on an applied ethnographic study of 47 wildlife ecotourism (WE) operators and wildlife researchers in protected area WTAs across four countries. Like any framework, it is a snapshot of the authors' thinking at a particular time and must be improved upon. The MLF does not purport to solve the negative treatment of nonhumans that can occur in tourism settings, but rather responds to calls in the tourism literature to acknowledge our effects on other species and advocates for equitable human-nonhuman livelihoods. This paper argues that we have a moral responsibility to nonhumans and the environment, and the authors hope to generate reflexive discourse concerning the role tourism can play in redressing the ecological crisis and improving the treatment of individual nonhumans to foster wildlife-human coexistence. ARTICLE HISTORY
Stakeholder theory has largely been anthropocentric in its focus on human actors and interests, failing to recognise the impact of nonhumans in business and organisations. This leads to an incomplete understanding of organisational contexts that include key relationships with nonhuman animals. In addition, the limited scholarly attention paid to nonhumans as stakeholders has mostly been conceptual to date. Therefore, we develop a stakeholder theory with animals illustrated through two ethnographic case studies: an animal shelter and Nordic husky businesses. We focus our feminist reading of Driscoll and Starik’s (J Bus Ethics 49:55–73, 2004) stakeholder attributes for nonhumans and extend this to include affective salience built on embodied affectivity and knowledge, memories, action and care. Findings reveal that nonhuman animals are important actors in practice, affecting organisational operations through human–animal care relationships. In addition to confirming animals are stakeholders, we further contribute to stakeholder theory by offering ways to better listen to nontraditional actors.
Simple Summary
Tourists who visit elephant tourism venues (ETVs), and other wildlife attractions, can influence the activities offered at these venues by positive and negative word-of-mouth. When a person has a good experience and they tell their family and friends, or leave reviews online, this can influence people to participate in the activity. The same is also true when a person has a bad experience; although, in this instance, they can influence people not to participate in the activity, limiting the possible success of that venue. Generally, tourists seem to prefer to visit ETVs that allow elephants to behave naturally over those that make their elephants entertain tourists. Therefore, we visited twelve ETVs in Chiang Mai, Thailand, and compared the opinions of tourists who visited riding and non-riding venues towards the use of captive elephants for entertainment. We found that tourists who reported a preference for ETVs with higher welfare standards had personally seen elephants being treated poorly. Additionally, higher welfare standards may positively affect tourists’ satisfaction with their experience. Therefore, tourists can influence the activities offered at ETVs by demanding better living conditions for elephants and only financially supporting ETVs with higher welfare standards.
Abstract
Consumer satisfaction and preference can be integral in influencing and solidifying change in user-driven industries such as tourism. High satisfaction rates are imperative to the continual success of a venue as satisfaction determines the likelihood of repeat business and positive recommendations to friends, family and online review forums. Tourist preference for ecocentric tourism venues, over anthropocentric ones, appears to be increasing in elephant tourism venues (ETVs) in Thailand. To explore this, we visited twelve ETVs in Chiang Mai, Thailand, and compared the preferences and satisfaction of tourists who visited riding and non-riding venues toward the use of captive elephants in an entertainment setting. We found that tourists visited riding and non-riding ETVs for similar reasons, primarily due to recommendations from friends and reviews, and because the venue had a good reputation. Tourist preference for higher welfare standards was observed at venues where participants directly observed poor treatment of the elephants. Tourist satisfaction may be impacted by higher elephant welfare standards; therefore, tourists have the ability to influence the elephant tourism industry by demanding better living conditions for elephants and only financially supporting ETVs with higher welfare standards.
Methodologies to account for animal agency in tourism are still in their infancy. This paper extends developments that seek to enrich methodologies for studying the role of animals in tourism by arguing that methods relying solely on talk- and text-based accounts struggle to appreciate the moving encounters between human and non-human animals. Hence, the paper embraces the opportunities afforded through moving image methodologies by exploring mobile video ethnography as a way to account for and understand how tourism emerges through encounters between living agents. Whilst recognising the need for caution, the paper demonstrates how mobile multispecies video ethnography contributes to gaining access to the intimate spaces of human-animal encounters in tourism.
Fireflies are charismatic beetles with attractive bioluminescent courtship displays that have recently been swept onto the global stage of nature tourism. Here, we provide the first comprehensive review of the geographic scope, magnitude, focal species, and other attributes of the major firefly tourism sites worldwide. Through targeted interviews and surveys, we estimate that in recent years over one million tourists travelled annually to sites located in at least 12 countries for firefly‐watching. Rapid proliferation of firefly tourism provides a timely opportunity to examine how such activities may impact local firefly populations, and to highlight the biological factors that make certain species especially vulnerable to tourism‐associated threats. We offer science‐based best practices for firefly ecotourism that can be tailored to fit local circumstances, including recommendations to: (1) Conserve the habitats required for all life stages to thrive, (2) involve local communities as key stakeholders, and (3) provide training programs for guides and interpretive materials for visitors. Finally, we provide suggestions for transforming tourist behavior to minimize impact on firefly populations. By developing management plans that incorporate these recommendations, firefly tourist sites can enhance the visitor experience, protect natural resources, benefit local communities, and help promote the conservation of invertebrate biodiversity.
En la academia contemporánea, la geografía del turismo y la geografía de los animales se intersectan en el campo de la ética poshumanista —consideración filosófica de igualdad entre los animales humanos y no humanos—. Con base en una metodología de análisis del discurso se expone que la geografía del turismo devela al espacio como sistema complejo entre las regiones de emisión, tránsito y destino, y la geografía de los animales, centrada en la zooética poshumanista, revela que los animales no humanos pululan en el sistema turístico a través de su mercantilización. Aunque en el turismo se han reconocido acciones benéficas hacia los demás animales, son preponderantes las investigaciones que muestran la persistencia de su zooesclavitud. En el espacio emisor se difunden representaciones y se construyen imaginarios que incidirán en la explotación de los demás animales; en el espacio de tránsito resulta paradójica la preocupación por el bienestar de los animales de compañía con los que se viaja, mientras que otros son usados para movilizar a los turistas; en el espacio de destino los animales no humanos son el fin o el medio para concretar las apetencias de los visitantes a través de la observación, la comida, el abuso, etcétera.
This article critically explores insights into human–equine touristic experiences and acknowledges how such interconnectivity underline nature-based solutions (NBS) to mutually enhance psychological well-being. Despite the growing interest in NBS limited accounts have explored human–animal relations within the realm of touristic encounters. Drawing upon multispecies ethnographic accounts, participant observations, diaries, and in-depth interviews were held with 21 participants, with topics themed around human–equine experiences, relational encounters, and well-being. The sample was taken from participants located in the North East of England who engaged in equestrian tourism. Findings revealed life-changing transformations as a result of multispecies encounters. Deep emotional elements were experienced through intersubjectivity where participants spoke of the psychological benefits of being immersed in natural landscapes with their equine companions. This article demonstrates human–equine experiences as a positive NBS and illustrates that for the two species to effectively interact in equine-assisted psychological interventions requires mutual trust, empathy, and effective communication.
Biological and behavioral sciences rely heavily on a humanist discourse of species and matter that limits its inquiry to a set of phenomena that in some ways serve, resemble or define the ontology of the human self. In this essay I explore alternative ideas of biology that seriously restructure our thinking about the modern self. If, as Foucault suggests, power-knowledge shapes identities, norms and politics through the medical appropriation of bodies and through the production of scientific theories and practices, then what is the possible challenge to these forms of knowledge? I look at transbiology as a new branch of science that offers an alternative to the mainstream biological exploration of the body and the self, and maps new institutional cartographies of science and most importantly philosophical ontology. Author(s): Marianna Szczygielska Title (English): Transbiological Re-imaginings of the Modern Self and the Nonhuman: Zoo Animals as Transbiological Entities Journal Reference: Identities: Journal for Politics, Gender and Culture, Vol. 10, No. 1-2 (Summer-Winter 2013) Publisher: Institute of Social Sciences and Humanities – Skopje Page Range: 101-110 Page Count: 10 Citation (English): Marianna Szczygielska, “Transbiological Re-imaginings of the Modern Self and the Nonhuman: Zoo Animals as Transbiological Entities,” Identities: Journal for Politics, Gender and Culture, Vol. 10, No. 1-2 (Summer-Winter 2013): 101-110.
Wildlife tourism attractions (WTA) are popular in the United States, but they may be harmful to the individual animals involved and we question whether they provide benefits to environmental conservation. Most research on the welfare and environmental implications of WTAs focuses on charismatic mammals, with few studies investigating these issues for reptiles. Here we examine alligator wrestling, including its impact on animal welfare and environmental conservation. Using a sample of 94 relevant YouTube videos of alligator wrestling in Florida representing 16 different venues, we coded the environmental and behavioral characteristics evident in each video. We then performed a content analysis of wrestlers’ narration in a subset of 51 videos to analyze the environmental awareness and educational components of alligator wrestling. Our results show systemic welfare harm: 11 venues housed adult alligators together with conspecifics, 96% of alligator wrestling performances facilitated direct contact in the form of physical restraint by one or more human wrestlers, and as many as 96% of the videos did not show a suitable water or waterside features for captive alligators. Furthermore, 12% of performances showed wrestlers flipping alligators onto their backs while 16% showed wrestlers tying alligators’ jaws shut, both of which are known to be acute stressors. Finally, just under half of alligator wrestling commentary (49%) addressed environmental conservation topics, and much of this commentary included contradictory or misleading information that is not likely to benefit alligators in the wild. We argue that alligator wrestling serves no role in promoting positive relationships between humans, animals, and the environment, and instead furthers traditional notions of dominion that undermine welfare and conservation aims.
A varied and insightful compendium of animals and the relationships between humans and animals. In this fascinating encyclopedia about animals in world myth, legend, and literature, author Boria Sax documents how profoundly animals and their symbolism are integrated into human values. In the prehistoric cave paintings of France and Spain—the most ancient works of art we have—humans were depicted as stick figures and animals painted with more care and passion. The first clearly religious shrines were dedicated to animals. Later, animals were representative of anything from totems and deities to demons and augurs of witchcraft. Creatures that seem the products of gene splicing between species were the monsters of folklore.
Emphasizing depth rather than breadth,The Mythical Zoocovers everything from frogs and grasshoppers to dolphins, salmon, rabbits, and tigers. After a masterful overview, there are about 50 entries with references to literature from a variety of cultures and extensive illustrations ranging from medieval prints to cartoons and advertisements.
Despite the progression of animal welfare within the tourism literature and the industry itself, a significant change in public behaviour remains to be seen. Anthropocentric views of animals as objects are still widespread. This paper proposes a new approach to engaging the public in ethical behaviours by meeting visitors where they are in terms of their values and priorities. Drawing on Susan Wolf’s work, we propose a realistic line of attack to ethics that offers an opportunity for researchers and advocates to think more critically about the many ways that people might relate to morality, particularly regarding animals encountered in travel. We suggest that this approach may serve to better the lives of the animals by appealing to tourists’ nuanced ethical stances regarding animals.
An important sector of animal-based tourism is wildlife tourism, which includes a diverse base of attractions in captive, semi-captive and wild settings. We argue that actors (tourists, tourism operators, and academics) must have the prerequisite knowledge of animal welfare to assess animals’ conditions in tourism settings. To this end, this paper has two aims. The first is to develop an animal welfare syllabus that should be used to teach students in higher learning institutions (who may ultimately work at animal attractions upon their graduation) as well as operators. The second aim is to mesh the papers in this special edition as case studies within the syllabus in making a case for an enhanced animal welfare educational tool for wildlife tourism. While the animal welfare syllabus is constructed for all animals used in tourism, we apply it specifically to the wildlife tourism sector.
Trash Animals, a collection of essays by a wide range of environmental writers, examines relationships between humans and wildlife deemed filthy, feral, unwanted, problematic, invasive or worthless. These essays examine a growing trend of equating wildlife with trash. They question why birders call some birds “garbage” and why fisherman discard “trash” fish. As trash is a category that only exists in human culture, equating animals with trash reveals more about human expectations, fears, prejudices and frustrations with the natural world. Each essay presents a unique thesis about a species—seagulls, coyotes, carp, cockroaches, and others—North Americans deem filthy, dangerous, unwanted, problematic or worthless. By examining the biology and behavior of animals in contrast to its natural and cultural history the authors challenge common notions and assumptions about problematic wildlife, the nature/culture divide and the limits of human agency. Many of the essays provide new perspectives on human-animal relationships and challenge readers to re-imagine our ethics of engagement with wildlife.
Marine parks have successfully positioned themselves as harbingers of ‘once in a lifetime’ experiences for visitors motivated to get close, embodied experiences with dolphins and other cetaceans. Captive animal venues have amplified these experiences by expanding their programs to include ‘fake’ encounters with robotic (animatronic) animals as well as conventional wild encounters. This study sought to investigate the choices of university students on the opportunity to experience either a live swim-with-dolphin tour or an animatronic tour, and if their choices remained stable or changed after an intervention. Results indicate that the intervention strategy significantly impacted students’ choices, inducing them to later choose the animatronic dolphin experience. The paper tests our conceptions about what is real and artificial in charting a path for the future of responsible and sustainable tourism.
Guide dogs enhance the confidence of people with vision impairment (PwVI) and improve their everyday mobility, but they also present constraints to travel. This paper investigates the influence of the PwVI-guide dog relationship on travel behavior through a mixed method study of guide dog owners in the United Kingdom. Results from the quantitative analysis show that confidence to work the dog outside its normal environment has a significant positive effect on the number of overnight trips taken with the dog. Qualitative findings highlight the affective qualities of the relationship that influence change in travel behavior to accommodate guide dog limitations and well-being. This study expands our understanding of the diversity of interpersonal relations that influence accessible travel behavior and contributes to human-animal relations research in tourism.
Standing in the way of a stronger voice for animals used in tourism is Cartesian and contractarian thinking on the part of operators and ontologically and epistemically constructed barriers by theorists. This paper pushes the animal ethics agenda forward by developing a novel, first-of-its-kind animal-informed consent framework in tourism under the assumption that sled dogs do, in fact, consent or deny consent through their emotions, preferences, behaviours, and physical state. The Five Domains model of animal welfare focused on the subjective experiences of animals is used to build the framework. The discussion culminates with a discussion on asymmetric agency, which speaks to the lack of balance between human and animal agents working in the same events.
Despite increasing attention to questions of justice, particularly in academia, this has not necessarily impacted on tourism policy and practice. Evidence shows how unjust structures of the contemporary tourism system built on dominant humanism frameworks have been unable to address justice issues such as the omission of non-western perspectives or exclusion of marginalised groups and nonhuman actors. The dominance of traditional economic thinking such as neo-liberal growth policies has resulted in increasing claims of injustice that serves to threaten the long-term sustainability and growth of the tourism sector. Confronting such complexities, this paper uses a multispecies justice lens to explore the main narratives of justice and justice domains by considering a larger mixed moral community in the tourism landscape. Identifying a social-natural sciences divide, this work calls for a just sustainability transition in tourism research, policy, and practice. The concept of just sustainability transition proposed in this work is a longitudinal process with transitional steps demonstrating measurable outcomes from actions to move towards not only more sustainable, but also more just tourism futures for humans and nonhumans.
Through a critical pedagogical framework, global conservation initiatives are integrated to curate a transformational extended reality (XR) curriculum in nature-based tourism (NBT). This proposed design affects visitors’ protected area experience and supports human–wildlife relationships through XR exposure (before), peak NBT experiences (during), and post-experience reflections (after). The authors’ XR design entitled Knowing Wolves (KW) is inspired by Colorado’s publicly approved Gray Wolf reintroduction legislation and reorients the visitor experiencescape as a conduit for wildlife agency after exposure to critical thinking engagement for biocultural conservation. The authors analyze four international initiatives featuring human–wildlife criteria including the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, the Global Sustainable Tourism Criteria, the Convention on Biological Diversity post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework, and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. The XR curriculum challenges practices of colonial conservation, integrates environmental intersectionality and critical inquiry to support engagement with posthumanism philosophy and agency of oppressed groups.
The aim of this study is to explore how tourism operators make sense of the abilities and needs of working animals during the co-creation of a tourism experience in order to make kin across species. We refer to sense-making as the process in which tourism actors interpret the context, plans, actions and outcomes relating to animal-based tourism. We examine this phenomenon through the eco-feministic lens of making kin and staying with the trouble (Haraway, 2016) by exploring reflections upon the practices in which tourists, animals, and guides are entangled. Qualitative data from Iceland, Norway and the USA reveal that multiple aspects of the relationships during co-creation are “made sense of” including values, knowledge, relationships, abilities and needs. Tensions arise around the differences in values and knowledge between actors bounded in co-creational practices. The study adds to the conversation on “staying with the trouble” of ethics and agency in animal based tourism and contributes to our understanding of the role of empathetic sense-making in animal based tourism, illuminating key issues that contribute to co-creating value for animals, tourists, and providers. We aim to contribute to the field of feminist ecological economics that combines social justice, and ecological perspective, while emphasizing that the services of other-than-humans are essential for wellbeing of all species.
Research on animal ethics continues to escalate in tourism but does so in the absence of a comprehensive statement on animal suffering. This paper aims to rectify this deficiency through two broad aims. The first is to define suffering and related terms and provide a brief statement on the science of suffering; highlight issues related to the ethics of animal suffering; and provide a brief discussion on policy and suffering. The second aim is to develop a roadmap to eliminate animal suffering in tourism as a priority. The theoretical framework adopted in this paper rests within care ethics and empathy.
This study’s aim is to elucidate what tourists’ encounter with feral animals entail—an infrequently studied concept in the literature—by building on the discussion of authenticity in wildlife tourism experiences using the case of feral rabbits. Netnography was used to examine tourists’ comments and photos in 386 TripAdvisor reviews written in Japanese and English about Ōkunoshima Island in Hiroshima, Japan. The findings indicate that the space where tourist and feral rabbit interactions occur can be compared to a ‘natural petting zoo’ and a theme park, where tourists’ seek entertainment rather than authentic experiences. Even uncontrolled, chaotic wildness—the characteristic of feral animals—was consumed by tourists who found it entertaining. Unmediated interactions allowed tourists to be fully in charge of interactions with the rabbits especially through feeding. Their encounters with the rabbits especially left tourists in Japanese reviews with feeling of healing. Widely adopted conservation-based wildlife tourism frameworks are inadequate for managing tourist–feral rabbit encounters because if they were adapted, the rabbits would be eradicated. Therefore, a policy for Ōkunoshima Island that balances the needs of tourists, rabbits, and the surrounding environment is needed.
This article explores encounters between wild maritime animals and humans on Finnish deep-sea sailing ships in the early twentieth century. At that time, sailing ships were disappearing from the world’s oceans, and the deep-sea sailors of the 1930s romanticised themselves as representing the last wild and free adventurers in the world. Maritime animals played a central role in this romanticisation, and the encounters with them therefore came to be highly ritualised. Drawing on sailmaker Winifred Lloyd’s (1897–1940) diaries and other maritime accounts of that time which contain rich textual and visual evidence, this article argues that the albatross embodied the glamour of maritime adventures, the heroic meeting between sailors and the ocean, and the sailing ship as a space of masculine homosociality and freedom. As such, they became symbols of the vanishing maritime life and community, while the bodies of albatrosses, caught and often killed by the sailors, bear witness also to the fact that the human exploitation of nature is an important part of maritime history.
The Chernobyl Exclusion Zone is often depicted as either a wildlife refuge or an apocalyptic wasteland, which is representative of the ongoing scientific controversy regarding the effects of the 1986 nuclear catastrophe on nature in the Zone. In this article, the filthy/flourishing binary is disrupted by attending to the everyday human‐dog relations that have emerged in the Zone between dogs ‐ some of which are likely descendants of pets originally abandoned during the evacuation in 1986 ‐ and checkpoint guards. Participatory photography is deployed as method. Themes of companionship, care and commensality emerge alongside a discussion of the nature of Chernobyl dogs, which is invoked in discourses surrounding their apparent wildness, territoriality and adaptation to radiation.
In times of upheaval and uncertainty justice has come to the fore as a key principle to guide tourism development and policy. Justice is being sought by individuals, groups and societies, as vulnerable individuals and populations seek to be able to protect themselves from longstanding and deeply embedded historical, and new emerging forms of, injustice. In response, this special issue presents a range of theoretical perspectives and empirical insights into justice and tourism. Given the early stage of theory building in this field, tourism researchers are well served by exploring the multi-/inter-/trans-disciplinary knowledge domains in which theories of justice are being addressed. In this paper frame some emerging principles and approaches to justice and tourism as addressed in the special issue, including social justice, equity and rights; inclusiveness and recognition; sustainability and conservation; well-being, belonging and capabilities; posthumanistic justice; and governance and participation. In doing so we outline the wide range of issues and insights for ‘just’ tourism that demand urgent and rigorous scholarly attention. A nascent new platform of research on justice and ethics is emerging to guide tourism and sustainability. This special issue offers valuable insights and guidance towards this timely and important research agenda.