ABSTRACT
Animals are central to, though often overlooked in, the tourism experience. They include wild, domesticated, and companion animals. They are the focus of the tourist’s multisensory gaze, industry workers, guests, and unwanted pests. They are divided into the exotic and the mundane, and in a humancentric view according to whether we love, hate, or eat them. These divisions represent and shape how individuals and societies value different animals.
This chapter explores the myriad ways, positive and negative, in which tourists and the tourism industry impact, both directly and indirectly, the lives and well-being of all animals. It is situated within the realisation that animals are sentient beings and that, as such, humans, given their relative power over non-human animals, have obligations to them. Ignoring the sentience of animals, it is suggested, is immoral but often done in the name of human enjoyment and profit maximisation. It is also unsustainable.
The chapter explores the potential to increase animal well-being in relation to the tourism experience and, through these experiences, beyond tourism. In doing so, it rejects the extreme animal rights position that would ban all involvement of animals in the human tourism experience. Rather, a welfarist position is adopted that identifies the position of all animals within a human-constructed reality. In this context, it is recognised that animals must exist and thrive in the tourism experience, balancing the needs of the industry and the animals in a manner that is sustainable and beneficial to all.
