Responsible tourism – protecting wildlife
Baboo has agreed to not sell or advertise the use of elephants or wild animals. We commit to providing animal conservation and welfare activities, as well as viewing animals in their natural habitat, and have pledged to this purpose with the World Animal Protection.
Read more about our pledge below.
Believes tourism can be a force for good and can help keep wildlife wild. As a responsible travel company, we recognize the links between wildlife protection, human health, and a responsible and resilient travel industry.
Understands the link between pandemics, like COVID-19, and wild animal exploitation, and that the relationship between tourism and wildlife needs to change for the good of people, world economies and animals.
Recognizes that building back the travel industry more resilient and more responsibly is vital. As we face unprecedented challenges and routes to recovery due to COVID-19, we want to be part of the solution for our business, our communities and for travelers.
Understands that tourists love animals and want to experience them on holidays but are not aware that across the world hundreds of thousands of wild animals are held in captivity and subjected to mental and physical suffering and exploitation for experiences such as elephant rides, tiger selfies, walking with lions or swimming with dolphins.
Review our product offers to determine if we are supplying anything where wild animals are being used anywhere primarily for entertainment.*
Create a time-bound plan to help protect wild animals by influencing significant changes in supplier practices and / or phasing-out wildlife entertainment from our promotions and offers.
Adopt an animal welfare policy for our business and share this policy with customers and staff.
Provide our customers, if possible, with responsible wildlife offers where animals in the wild, at genuine sanctuaries or wildlife-friendly settings have the freedom and ability to exhibit a wide range of natural behaviors and tourists can observe them from a safe and respectful distance.
Promote responsible tourism amongst our customers to enable them to be wildlife-friendly travellers and advocates.
* Wildlife entertainment includes activities that risk portraying or trivialising wild animals as pets, novelty objects, comedians, or domesticated species; that encourage animals to perform behaviours that are either unnatural, unnecessary, or harmful; that involve procedures that may be considered stressful or harmful to all or individual animals; that expose visitors or handlers to unnecessary risks of injury or disease; that are commerce-driven beyond sustaining maintenance of the animals at facilities striving to phase-out captive wild animal keeping; or that may risk replication of similar activities in harmful ways in other places.