Sustainable Safari Practices: Proximity to Wildlife, Educational Intervention and the Quality of Experience

This research examines the perceived quality of experience for safari tourists in relation to wildlife viewing proximities and the potential of educational interventions as a management strategy to mitigate adverse impacts of safari participant crowding. Crowding emanates from the safari tourist preferences to obtain close proximity to animals, particularly large mammals. Recognizing these preferences and associated impacts to animal behavior defined in previous research, we develop and deliver a survey instrument designed to measure the perceived quality of experience of the safari tourist while controlling for the viewing proximity variable. The survey instrument involves responding to stock photos selected to represent the safari-tour experience, using a Likert type rating scale. Using a “pre-treatment” and “post treatment” protocol, we share an educational management intervention that correlates the impact of intervention on safari participants’ perceptions of the quality of safari experience based on proximity to animals.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Science (MS)

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Cultural and Environmental Resource Management

Year dc:date.available

2016

Author dc:creator

• Tarver, Ryan Devine

Contributors dc:contributor

• Dominic Klyve
• Kenneth Cohen
• Robert Perkins

• Ecotourism
• Safari-Tourism
• Proximity
• Wildlife-Viewing
• Ngrongoro
• Tanzania
• African Studies
• Environmental Studies
• Nature and Society Relations
• Place and Environment
• Recreation, Parks and Tourism Administration
• Tourism

Language dc:language

English

Repository record dc:identifier

https://digitalcommons.cwu.edu/etd/483

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:digitalcommons.cwu.edu:etd-1487