Essay On Wildlife Tourism

Wildlife tourism is described as tourism based on encounters with non-domesticated animals (Van der Merwe & Du Plessis, 2014:9). These encounters can either occur in the animals’ natural environment or in captivity and includes consumptive and non-consumptive activities (Higginbottom,2004:60). In many other cases, protected areas for wildlife tourism is established fundamental changes to the surrounding lands, increasing the proportion of employment in the service and retail sectors while significantly reducing the exploitation of natural resources for consumptive use (Higginbottom, 2004:60).

Wildlife tourism incorporates three forms of natural area tourism. It is partly a) adventure travel, b) mostly nature-based, c) involvement of ecotourism's

Some South African examples of wildlife tourism include whale-watching in Hermanus from June to November, overnighting in any of the 19 South African national parks (SANParks) or visiting a wildlife sanctuary or rehabilitation centre in the country. According to Morisson (2017:2), the "quality tourism products, of which the environment is an essential component, will increase the tourism industries market share". Therefore, demand for holidays offering a "real" experience, particularly the chance to encounter wildlife in its natural domain, are gaining popularity. A surface of authenticity ensures tourists to stay interested, however, staged authenticity occurs frequently in wildlife tourism. Keepers at zoological park use a various architectural technique to give the illusion that the habitat of an animal is natural (Gore

In the context of South Africa, most of the tourism product and service contributions are nature or wildlife based, with SANParks as one of the major role players to the wildlife tourism memorable experience.

The memorable experience of a tourist was a key research issue in the 1960’s (Urliely, 2005:29), becoming common in the social science literature by the 1970’s (Quan & Wang,2004:299). During the literature development, the memorable experience of a tourist was debated by authors, such as (MacCannell, 1973:589) who associated it to authenticity, and (Cohen,1979:179) who discovered experience in terms of theoretical theory.

In the tourism industry, it is important to know that an experience initiates from interactions amongst the tourists and the tourism establishment or product offerings (Hosany & Witham, 2010:351). Tourist/visitor experience is defined as the “general impression, understanding, rating and meaning that a visitor attaches to their encounter with a specific place, event or activity” (Page & Connell, 2009:648). In both the theoretical community and between commerce practitioners, it is the belief that the core of tourism is the visitor experience (Ritchie, Tung, & Ritchie.