River HAYES, Brandeis University, United States
Sam VAN HORN, Davidson College, United States
Rachel KESSLER, University of Virginia, United States
The economy of Bocas del Toro (BDT), Panama heavily relies on wildlife tourism. This industry mainly consists of popular daily boat tours that allow tourists to observe a variety of local animal species, making it responsible for a large portion of the jobs and livelihoods in BDT. Previous conceptual frameworks, such as Reynold and Braithwaite’s pillars of wildlife tourism experience, have provided a means of exploring tourists’ feelings about their wildlife tourism encounters. Understanding tourist’s preferences and their actual experiences on wildlife tours in BDT may help tour operators to not only improve their tours in ways that tourists would potentially pay more for, but also to improve their tours in terms of environmental education and conservation efforts. This study explores the behaviors and preferences of wildlife tourists in BDT in the context of eight wildlife tourism experience pillars. After observing, conversing with, and surveying 101 tourists participating in wildlife tours in BDT, our results reveal several important findings. 1: The ability to photograph and film the focal species is important to tourists, and should be considered as its own wildlife tourism experience pillar in future studies that use a similar framework. 2: Although tourists expressed high levels of concern for tourism’s impact on local wildlife, they were not satisfied with the animal welfare practices they observed. 3: Although tourists expressed high levels of desire for environmental education on tours, they experienced low levels of satisfaction with the environmental education they received. These results reveal a need to restructure the various tours to align with these interests and conservation principles. Particularly due to the recent impact of the pandemic on BDT’s wildlife tourism industry, it is vital that tour operators are able to understand and respond to tourist preferences in order to maintain and increase the appeal of BDT as a tourist destination.
Mots clés : wildlife tourism|Bocas del Toro|conservation|environmental education|Panama
A104076RH