Responsible Travel ditches trips that include zoo visits
Responsible Travel has stopped promoting trips that include visits to zoos on its website.
The online travel company has removed six trips from its site, the first travel company to publicly make such a move.
CEO Justin Francis said:"We believe tourism plays a role in funding conservation, and crucially, in ensuring local people and governments benefit sufficiently to make conservation viable.
"Zoos are not appropriate in 2017. They are relics of the past, and the arguments to justify keeping animals in captivity no longer stand up.
"The sad reality is that the animals are held captive primarily for our entertainment not for reasons of conservation and it is time that this stopped."
Responsible Travel’s primary focus is enabling people to see animals in the wild in ways that support conservation of habitats and species. Its wildlife holiday sales have grown by 25% in the last two years.
Responsible Travel is urging its tour operator partners to follow suit and asks travellers to think twice before visiting a zoo.
The company will still promote legitimate animal sanctuaries and rescue centres for animals that cannot be returned to the wild,wildlife conservancies and National Parks, aswell as rehabilitation centres where animals are looked after and then returned to the wild.
The website will also continue to promote genuine endangered species conservation centres.
Lisa
Lisa joined Travel Weekly nearly 25 years ago as technology reporter and then sailed around the world for a couple of years as cruise correspondent, before becoming deputy editor. Now freelance, Lisa writes for various print and web publications, edits Corporate Traveller’s client magazine, Gateway, and works on the acclaimed Remembering Wildlife series of photography books, which raise awareness of nature’s most at-risk species and helps to fund their protection.
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