Saving animals or saving face? Avoiding welfare-washing in animal tourism partnerships

Bibliographic Data

ID21724018
AuthorsCurtis Kline (0000-0002-6883-6539, Appalachian State University, corresponding author), Carol Kline (Appalachian State University), Jes Hooper (0000-0001-6840-7606, University of York)
Year2025
Pages1-16
Publication date2025-10-06
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Ecotourism (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1472-4049 • E-ISSN: 1747-7638
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14724049.2025.2559985
OpenAlexW7164834166
LanguageEN
References cited42

Across the globe, millions of animals are utilized in the tourism industry every year. The complexities involved in animal tourism, and the conflicting interests of stakeholders, has led to travel and tourism companies forming partnerships with animal welfare organizations. In this paper, we postulate that these partnerships not be taken at face value as an advance toward animal justice. Additionally, we suggest that while animal advocacy groups show strong potential for instigating behavioral change by engaging directly with the tourism industry, they must consider alignment of values to avoid appropriation of their brand image for the purpose of corporate greenwashing and welfare-washing. In this study, we propose a method for measuring the efficacy of these emergent collaborations between animal advocacy organizations and tourism industry – the Animal Advocacy & Tourism Partnership Framework designed to identify new sustainable partnership opportunities and to evaluate the effectiveness of pre-existing ones

Ecotourism · Nature tourism · Sustainability · Tourism · Wildlife conservation · Wildlife tourism · Culinary Culture and Tourism · Diverse Aspects of Tourism Research · Geographies of human-animal interactions

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