Online travel site Your African Safari ends sale of tickets to cruel wildlife attractions

Online travel site Your African Safari (YAS), a comprehensive travel site for booking and reviewing African tours and safaris, announced that it has stopped selling tickets to tours that offer some of the world’s cruelest wildlife attractions, including elephant rides and walks with lions. Your African Safari, which lists more than 3000 tours in Africa on its site, took the initiative to remove cruel wildlife attractions after hearing about the commitments made by TripAdvisor and other travel companies for elephant-friendly travel in 2016.  

Your African Safari founder Jennifer Goetz said:

“YAS is pleased to work with organizations such as World Animal Protection to make positive, sustainable changes for animals and to help educate tourists on the various safari packages on offer. Most visitors wish to preserve and protect the animals they see on safari, yet many tourists aren’t aware of the cruelty behind the scenes of activities like elephant-back rides and walks with lions. We are working with World Animal Protection by not allowing tours of this nature on YAS and hope that others in the travel industry will join us in committing to promote only tour packages that are in the animals’ best interest.”

Launched in 2014, Your African Safari (YAS) provides a place for people to leave candid reviews of African safari tour operators. YAS currently features over 2100 tour operators, 1500 reviews and over 10,000 safari photos. Users can shortlist up to five tour operators and compare and contrast companies based on criteria such as ratings, languages spoken and years of operation.

Your African Safari’s actions represent a growing movement for change in the travel industry. In October 2016, TripAdvisor committed to stop selling tickets to some of the world’s cruelest wildlife activities, sites where tourists are allowed direct contact with captive wild animals or endangered species. TripAdvisor also committed to launch an online education portal, which World Animal Protection is helping to build, to allow millions of tourists to learn about the cruelties wild animals face for tourism entertainment. TripAdvisor’s commitments followed World Animal Protection’s petition calling on the company to stop selling tickets to cruel wildlife attractions, signed by more than 558,000 supporters. More than 100 travel companies around the world have also committed to stop selling tickets to elephant rides and shows.

“Your African Safari is setting a fantastic example for online travel sites and tour operators around the world,” said Elizabeth Hogan, U.S. Oceans & Wildlife Campaign Manager. “By encouraging tourists who love wild animals to see them safely on tours and safaris in the wild, they’re helping to make cruel wildlife tourist attractions a thing of the past.”

To learn more about World Animal Protection’s Wildlife. Not Entertainers campaign to protect wild animals in the tourism industry, click here.

To learn more about elephant riding in Africa and how to choose an elephant-friendly safari, visit Your African Safari.

Most visitors wish to preserve and protect the animals they see on safari, yet many tourists aren’t aware of the cruelty behind the scenes of activities like elephant-back rides and walks with lions. We are working with World Animal Protection by not allowing tours of this nature on YAS and hope that others in the travel industry will join us in committing to promote only tour packages that are in the animals’ best interest.