Animal-friendly tourism. Can it be more important and necessary to learn more about that? Well, when we got the invitation to come to Stockholm and attend a seminar, we said yes straight away. So after coming back from Lubeck, we headed straight for Stockholm and the event.

Animal-Friendly Tourism – World Animal Protection

World Animal Protection is one of the biggest international animal protection organization. We have done collaborations with them before and we wrote an article about elephant tourism. This seminar was about elephants and dolphins in the tourism industry. And boy, was it ever so interesting!

Therese Lilliesköld, anthrozoolog (studies interactions between humans and animals) talked about the animals that are kept in captivity for our amusement. We believe that we are pretty well educated in this matter and choose not to visit certain places during our travels. However, there’s always room to learn more. And we do believe that this is a really important topic that needs to be addressed.

Roger Pettersson from World Animal Protection and Therese Lilliesköld anthrozoolog

Seminar at the Birger Jarl Hotel in Stockholm

At first, we weren’t sure that we were in the right place. But after asking around we made it to the seminar. Before it started, we got a really great breakfast. Coffee, juice and a sandwich (vegan of course). And then the General Secretary of World Animal Protection, Roger Pettersson, talked about the organization and what they do. We were really proud that we were invited to this event. Now, everyone is talking about the environment and about flight shaming. Sure, the use of animals in tourism is often discussed but we tend to forget. Forget what’s important and forget what’s right and wrong.

Travel responsibly and owning up for once footprint on the earth is super important. Since we were invited to La Gomera on a sustainable press trip, we have changed several things in our thinking. But like I said, there is always more to learn and more to change. And since this is our lifestyle and we are full-time travelers, it’s super important for us to be updated and to learn more about the animals and what we keep doing to them.

So much important information at the seminar

At first, my ambition was to write about what we learned at the seminar in this post and give you guys all the information. But I quickly understood that doing that would be a waste. We got so much important and informative information that we want to share with you and we feel that the best way to do so is to write separate posts – one about the elephants in the tourism industry and one about the dolphins in the tourism industry.

So be prepared for posts about how cruel we are as tourists (even when we think that we are doing it the right way). And how do you know if what you are doing is animal cruelty? Hard questions with not so easy answers. However, if more people would attend seminars like these, the world would quickly become a better place.

World Animal Protection is working to help animals

This organization is doing so much for the animals that it is impossible to list them all. They get involved and show the people and the tourist organizations how it looks. World Animal Protection want’s people to change their attitude towards using wild animals in the tourism industry. They want to work together with other organizations and get excited every time there is a change made for the better, regarding animals.

And their work is incredibly important. Without this organization and others such as this, the world would be a lot crueler. But, we all need to take responsibility for our travels and do our best not to harm animals. It’s not an easy job but a really important one!

Thank you Animal World Protection for inviting us to your seminar – we will help you to spread the word!