An evaluation of governance systems for tourist-accessible animal sanctuaries in emerging economies and an assessment of their effectiveness from the perspective of stakeholders
type: CreativeWork
description: Animal sanctuaries have proliferated around the world in recent decades and play an important role in the growing wildlife tourism industry. With a general expectation that animal sanctuaries ensure animal welfare and conservation, the lack of an officially agreed definition and the absence of regulatory systems leave sanctuary operators largely free to choose which practices to adopt. This can lead to facilities marketing themselves as 'sanctuaries', but in reality using exploitative practices to attract visitors. This research examines existing governance systems for tourist-accessible animal sanctuaries in emerging economies and assesses their effectiveness from a stakeholder perspective. To examine a variety of stakeholder perspectives, this research uses qualitative data in the form of 12 interviews representing industry experts, six documents representing industry standards (guidelines and certification schemes) and 920 TripAdvisor reviews representing the customer view. The data is analysed using an interpretive approach with an inductive latent thematic analysis applied across all three data sources to allow comparison of the different stakeholder perspectives. The thesis argues that there is a shift from a predominant anthropocentric (human-centred) to a more ecocentric (nature-centred) worldview, and a consequent need to recognise animals as stakeholders and provide them with voice and agency. Existing governance systems for animal sanctuaries are challenged to strike a balance between providing tourist entertainment, as demanded by the anthropocentric view, and ensuring animal welfare and conservation, as implied in an ecocentric context. For an improved understanding of what constitutes an animal sanctuary, this research contributes a definition of an animal sanctuary that is not only animal related but also visitor related, as most animal sanctuaries are dependent on visitor income. Such recognition has been largely bypassed in previous definitions and …
abstract: Animal sanctuaries have proliferated around the world in recent decades and play an important role in the growing wildlife tourism industry. With a general expectation that animal sanctuaries ensure animal welfare and conservation, the lack of an officially agreed definition and the absence of regulatory systems leave sanctuary operators largely free to choose which practices to adopt. This can lead to facilities marketing themselves as 'sanctuaries', but in reality using exploitative practices to attract visitors. This research examines existing governance systems for tourist-accessible animal sanctuaries in emerging economies and assesses their effectiveness from a stakeholder perspective. To examine a variety of stakeholder perspectives, this research uses qualitative data in the form of 12 interviews representing industry experts, six documents representing industry standards (guidelines and certification schemes) and 920 TripAdvisor reviews representing the customer view. The data is analysed using an interpretive approach with an inductive latent thematic analysis applied across all three data sources to allow comparison of the different stakeholder perspectives. The thesis argues that there is a shift from a predominant anthropocentric (human-centred) to a more ecocentric (nature-centred) worldview, and a consequent need to recognise animals as stakeholders and provide them with voice and agency. Existing governance systems for animal sanctuaries are challenged to strike a balance between providing tourist entertainment, as demanded by the anthropocentric view, and ensuring animal welfare and conservation, as implied in an ecocentric context. For an improved understanding of what constitutes an animal sanctuary, this research contributes a definition of an animal sanctuary that is not only animal related but also visitor related, as most animal sanctuaries are dependent on visitor income. Such recognition has been largely bypassed in previous definitions and …
author: Schuhmacher, Caroline
language: en
date modified: 2026-07-24T03:42:32Z
provider: Oxford Brookes University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: Oxford Brookes University

PropertyValue
property ID: DOI
value: 10.24384/45kp-hv49