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How Tourist Preference and Satisfaction Can Contribute to Improved Welfare Standards at Elephant Tourism Venues in Thailand

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 ca...

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Autores principales: Flower, Emily K., Burns, Georgette Leah, Jones, Darryl N.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8069915/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33921302
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ani11041094
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author Flower, Emily K.
Burns, Georgette Leah
Jones, Darryl N.
author_facet Flower, Emily K.
Burns, Georgette Leah
Jones, Darryl N.
author_sort Flower, Emily K.
collection PubMed
description 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.
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spelling pubmed-80699152021-04-26 How Tourist Preference and Satisfaction Can Contribute to Improved Welfare Standards at Elephant Tourism Venues in Thailand Flower, Emily K. Burns, Georgette Leah Jones, Darryl N. Animals (Basel) Article 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. MDPI 2021-04-12 /pmc/articles/PMC8069915/ /pubmed/33921302 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ani11041094 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Flower, Emily K.
Burns, Georgette Leah
Jones, Darryl N.
How Tourist Preference and Satisfaction Can Contribute to Improved Welfare Standards at Elephant Tourism Venues in Thailand
title How Tourist Preference and Satisfaction Can Contribute to Improved Welfare Standards at Elephant Tourism Venues in Thailand
title_full How Tourist Preference and Satisfaction Can Contribute to Improved Welfare Standards at Elephant Tourism Venues in Thailand
title_fullStr How Tourist Preference and Satisfaction Can Contribute to Improved Welfare Standards at Elephant Tourism Venues in Thailand
title_full_unstemmed How Tourist Preference and Satisfaction Can Contribute to Improved Welfare Standards at Elephant Tourism Venues in Thailand
title_short How Tourist Preference and Satisfaction Can Contribute to Improved Welfare Standards at Elephant Tourism Venues in Thailand
title_sort how tourist preference and satisfaction can contribute to improved welfare standards at elephant tourism venues in thailand
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8069915/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33921302
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ani11041094
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