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

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.

Polarization among Stakeholders Perception on the Interpretation of Ecotourism Resources in Gunung Halimun Salak National Park

“…The implementation of an interpretation program in order to introduce biodiversity and ecosystems, as well as culture around the national park area to tourists requires certain tools and methods as shown in Table 4. The use of various tools and methods is carried out in order to arouse feelings of wonder, awe, empathy, and concern audiences (Wolf & Croft, 2012;Lück, 2016;Tiberghien & Lennon, 2019;Dell'Eva et al, 2020;Tan & Choy, 2020;Ballantyne et al, 2021;Flower et al, 2021;Zhu et al, 2021). Traveling around is a method favored by many audiences in the TNGHS area, in this way tourists can enjoy open spaces and enrich their experiences in the national park area (Piccininni et al, 2018;Hudson, 2016).…”

“…Several studies have shown that the use of guide services can provide more satisfaction for visitors than the use of audio or self-guided (Moscardo, 2017;Beattie & Schneider, 2018), and direct experience in natural conditions is considered important by visitors (Lück, 2016;Muneenam et al, 2017;Dell'Eva et al, 2020;Farkic et al, 2021;Flower et al, 2021). One of the considerations that can improve services to visitors in the national park area is by involving more interpreters in the national park area (Dileep Kumar et al, 2020).…”

“…So far, ecotourism resources such as flora, fauna, natural and cultural phenomena are only interpreted from the point of view of understanding as objects of interpretation. By considering all ecotourism resources as objects of interpretation, the focus of their meaning tends to be only for the interests of the individual person, both in the position as interpreters and as tourists/audiences (Flower et al, 2021).…”

“…Second, program designs that are not in accordance with the needs of users or other stakeholders will cause messages in the interpretation not to be conveyed properly (Tiberghien & Lennon, 2019;Fang et al, 2021). The third reason, polarization studies will also provide valuable information on the diversity of tourist segments and their interest in interpreting resources and activities, which have an impact on travel decision making (Servidio & Ruffolo, 2016;Mutanga et al, 2017;Woźniak et al, 2018;López-Guzmán et al, 2019;Flower et al, 2021). The visible diversity provides an opportunity for managers to explore various potential new program designs that are more varied and unique for each tourist segment.…”

Will work for food

“…In the original manuscript, there was an opening bracket before the "e,g.," range of activities. Animals are used as transport for both people and equipment; for example, yaks in Nepal (Ning, Oli, Gilani, Joshi, & Bisht, 2016), mules in Morocco (Cousquer & Allison, 2012), camels in Botswana (Seiful, Angassa, & Boitumelo, 2019), horses in Iceland (Helgadóttir & Dashper, 2016), sled dogs in Canada (Fennell & Sheppard, 2011), and elephants in Thailand (Flower, Burns, & Jones, 2021).…”