A Study on the Impacts of Dolphin Watching as a Tourism Activity: Western Mauritius as Case Study

Abstract

Abstract-Dolphin-watching is now a major tourist attraction in many tropical islands. In the quest of capitalising on this opportunity, some destinations often overlook the impacts and implications of conducting such an activity. In the case of island destinations, it becomes more important to investigate this form of tourism attraction, given that islands face scarcity of resources and their self-sustaining growth are limited. With this as foundation, the present study investigates the impacts of dolphin watching as a tourism activity. Tamarin Bay (Mauritius) is chosen as case study. A mixed methodology approach is utilised. The findings show that dolphin-watching is conducted without control. The study proposes recommendations to island destinations' stakeholders engaging in this type of tourism activity.

Moving towards a sustainable cetacean-based tourism industry – A case study from Mozambique

“…Previous studies in other countries about CoC have produced similar results, indicating that operators are broadly aware of their existence (e.g. Gaitree and Ian, 2015;Inman et al, 2016;Parsons and Woods-Ballard, 2003).…”

“…It was also shown that if clients' expectations are managed prior to the experience (pre-tour brief), their levels of satisfaction will increase (Filby et al, 2015). A formal training of the boat crew on aspects such as boat and swimmer approach, dolphin behaviour, data collection, and guiding skills has been suggested in many research papers and put into practice successfully by some operators (Buultjens et al, 2016;Filby et al, 2015;Gaitree and Ian, 2015;Nicholls et al, 2013;Parsons, 2012).…”

“…The companies chosen were based on their location and activities, to ensure that all participants worked inside the PPMR boundaries and were involved directly or indirectly with CBT activities. The same methodology was used in other studies (Gaitree and Ian, 2015;Inman et al, 2016).…”

“…Based on these results, it could be assumed that operators, given that they agree with the statements, have high levels of compliance. Many studies in similar conditions have proven that awareness and understanding of the code does not necessarily result in full compliance by operators (Filby et al, 2015;Gaitree and Ian, 2015;Inman et al, 2016). However, in this study, when asked how they would act in the event of encountering dolphins but not being authorized to approach (not a "dolphin tour")(Figure 8), the majority indicated that they would explain to the clients that they were not allowed to approach/follow/swim and would also mention the existence of the code.…”

A Logit Model to explain Tourism Entrepreneurs’ Support for Tourism: Case Study for the island of Mauritius

“…Another reality of island tourism is that, very often, foreign-controlled tourism businesses take over local small enterprises, and locals welcome the initiative and thus support tourism as it gives opportunity for international exposure, business growth, and marketing. In other cases, locals choose not to support tourism when they perceive tourism as an industry that trade off their living environment for money (Gowreesunkar et al, 2014). Thus, it is legitimate to suggest that in most cases local entrepreneurs choose to support tourism if they perceive social benefit and business opportunities associated with the tourism development (Das and Sharma, 2009).…”