Souvenirs, Selfies, Suffering
The Real Cost of Animal Tourism
Tourism has long marketed itself as a passport to adventure, culture, and connection. But scratch the surface of that glossy brochure and what you often find is a thriving trade in commodified lives — animals used, displayed, consumed, ridden, caged, hunted, and killed to keep the illusion alive.
Carol Kline, a professor of tourism and current student of animal law, has spent years exposing the scale and scope of animal exploitation in the tourism industry. In a recent Faunalytics article, she makes a simple but powerful case: animal use in tourism is not a series of isolated incidents. It’s a global, interconnected system of abuse hidden behind economic justifications and sold as cultural experience.
And we have barely started holding it to account.
The Tourism Machine
Tourism isn't a single activity. It’s a sprawling web of experiences and infrastructure — transport, food, attractions, retail — with animals roped in across every sector. Whether it's dolphins confined in concrete tanks, camels worked to exhaustion in the heat, “exotic meats” sold as delicacies, or live animals made to perform, pose, or be pawed at, the common thread is this: animals are not seen as individuals, but as resources.
Kline reminds us that even well-meaning visitors play a part. Animal selfies, "swim with" tours, petting zoos, elephant rides, and festivals involving animals may be painted as innocent or traditional. But these activities almost always reduce animals to props or playthings.
This isn’t about isolated cases of “bad practice.” It’s systemic. Animals aren’t just “caught up” in tourism — they are built into it.
Cutting the Industry at the Joints
The public is often targeted as the problem: stop riding elephants, stop visiting aquariums, stop eating shark fin soup. But Kline points out that this only tackles the ends of the spectrum — the supply (animal “attractions,” hotels, restaurants) and the demand (tourists).
What’s missing? Everyone in between.
Tour operators. Travel influencers. Booking agents. Tourism boards. Bloggers. Media outlets. Travel policy writers. They're all part of the machine that legitimises, promotes, and profits from animal exploitation — yet few advocacy efforts target them directly. This is a gaping hole in our strategy.
If we want meaningful change, we must go beyond shaming tourists or persuading a single resort to ditch camel rides. We must disrupt the supply chain that makes animal use feel normal, desirable, and profitable. That means shifting pressure to the middle — to the industries and individuals who broker the connection between harm and holiday.
Not Just a Leisure Activity
Many see tourism as a luxury — a treat, a break from normal life. But for the places marketed as destinations, tourism is normal life. It's often the primary economic driver. Infrastructure, politics, local business development — all shaped by the need to attract and entertain outsiders.
Take North Carolina, where Kline lives: $35.6 billion came from tourism in 2023 alone. That’s $97 million per day. When an industry has that much power, it doesn’t just reflect society — it shapes it.
Which is why calling out its harms isn’t just about protecting animals — it’s about confronting the very idea that anyone or anything can be used as a means to someone else’s leisure.
What Counts as Exploitation?
Kline offers a long but still incomplete list:
▫️Wildlife watching
▫️Zoos and aquariums
▫️Animal rides
▫️Ambassador animals used for education
▫️Hunting and fishing
▫️Sanctuaries and refuges (some authentic, many not)
▫️Consuming animal bodies as local cuisine
▫️Souvenirs made from animal parts
▫️Animal-based traditional medicine
▫️Festivals with animals as centrepieces
▫️Animal sports and fights
▫️Portage animals
▫️Local stray animals abused or “cleaned up” for tourists
Even categories like “ethical wildlife tourism” or “voluntourism” can be deeply compromised. For example, many so-called sanctuaries double as glorified zoos. “Citizen science” initiatives sometimes operate without consent or consideration of local ecosystems. And “volunteer with animals” programmes often treat the animal as a stepping stone to someone’s Instagram content or self-image.
Piecemeal Activism Won’t Cut It
Kline credits Dr. David Fennell’s work for helping frame animal use in tourism as an issue worthy of systemic critique. His call to view it holistically is echoed in her own message: if we don’t tackle the tourism industry as a whole — not just isolated sectors or one-off events — we’ll keep running in circles. We cannot fix a system by rearranging its abuses.
We cannot keep pretending that addressing trophy hunting will stop the commodification of elephants while ignoring the zoos profiting from their captivity. We cannot call out cockfighting while promoting dolphin shows. We cannot pretend that swapping out one form of animal use for another is “progress.”
So What Do We Do?
1. Name the problem for what it is: animal use, animal exploitation, animal slavery — not “unethical attractions” or “questionable experiences.”
2. Target the intermediaries: if travel agents and influencers are selling harm, then they are accountable.
3. Unify advocacy: campaigns must treat animal use in tourism as one category, not fragmented parts.
4. Challenge economic justifications: no amount of revenue makes exploitation acceptable.
5. Reject ethical distractions: conservation tourism that relies on animal display or contact is often just exploitation with better PR.
6. Fund abolition, not reform: don’t fight for better cages or kinder riding practices. Fight to end use altogether.
The Bottom Line
The tourism industry does not need animals. It chooses them. And as long as there’s money to be made from their use, that choice will keep being made — unless the whole system is confronted.
Carol Kline’s work is a necessary call for the vegan movement to stop treating animal tourism as someone else’s problem. If we want abolition, we can’t cherry-pick causes based on ease or popularity. The justice movement for animals must reach every industry, every country, every single point of use.
That includes the one selling package holidays.