TripAdvisor has announced today that it will stop selling tickets to the cruelest of wildlife activities.
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Just six weeks ago, World Animal Protection launched a petition, with 558,000 supporters, which called for TripAdvisor to stop profiting from the sales of tickets to attractions that are cruel to animals.
This is progress for the charity's latest 'Wildlife-Not Entertainers' campaign.
They began their campaigning in 1992- which resulted in an end to bear dancing in Greece, Turkey and India.
Today's announcement means big steps are being made to end elephant rides, tiger selfies, swimming with dolphins and other forms of cruel tourist entertainment.
World Animal Protection aims to collaborate with other animal welfare, conservation and tourism experts to help TripAdvisor launch an educational portal, which will be linked to every animal attraction listed on their site.
The portal will inform people of the cruelties animals face all for the sake tourism and entertainment.
An independent poll commissioned by WAP found that 85% of people agreed wild animals belong in the wild. Three quarters also said that it is wrong to make a profit from animal suffering.
One of the most popular holiday activities are elephant rides and TripAdvisor will stop selling tickets for this, particularly after World Animal Protection has revealed this is one of the world's cruellest forms of wildlife tourist entertainment.
Baby elephants are often stolen from their mothers when they are young. They are beaten and suffer from physical and psychological abuse while they are trained to make them submissive enough to live out the rest of their lives chained up and to give rides to tourists.
Steve McIvor, CEO at World Animal Protection says:
" We congratulate TripAdvisor on taking this important step towards ending the cruel wildlife tourism entertainment industry - it's also a great result for over half a million World Animal Protection supporters who took action with us to stop the travel site from profiting on sales of elephant rides, tiger selfies and other cruel wildlife tourist interactions.
"We're happy to be a part of their new initiative to help raise awareness among TripAdvisor users about these abuses and we will work with and continue to steer the company until all sales of cruel wildlife entertainment has been removed and their users know about every cruel wildlife attraction. Once people know the truth about these wildlife abuses they will choose to stay away because they love animals."
Despite this being a huge step for the company- other venues that involve animal attractions will still be bookable via this avenue. They said they will end the sale of experiences where the tourists have direct contact with the wild animals.
Steve also adds: "We hope it will only be a matter of time before TripAdvisor will also come to realize that it has to end sales to all cruel wildlife attractions such as SeaWorld where the animals endure a lifetime of abuse and highly stressful training to perform. Until then we will provide the best education we can on TripAdvisor's website to steer people away from cruel venues like these."
Over 100 global travel companies have already agreed to no longer offer visits to venues with elephant rides and cruel shows. Among these are popular brands from across the world, like Contiki, Kuoni Travel UK, Intrepid and TUI.
Tagged in Animals