Expedia takes steps to prevent animal exploitation

Expedia Inc. announced that they plan to remove tours and attractions where participants interact with wildlife. The company has partnered with animal-protection groups to identify the attractions over the coming months.

Expedia also announced a new Wildlife Tourism Educational Portal to launch later this year, an initiative to help educate travelers on animal welfare. It will include information on activities offered through Expedia such as whether activities involve animal interactions, links to learn about wildlife tourism and animal welfare, and broader education around animal welfare.

This news is warmly welcomed by Freedom for Animals and follows a meaningful trend of travel companies turning their back on animal exploitation. Last October, Tripadvisor – one of the world’s largest travel websites – decided it would stop selling tickets to hundreds of attractions that bring tourists into contact with captive wild animals, like elephant rides, the chance to pet tigers and swimming with dolphins.

And more recently, UK-based travel company Responsible Travel has stopped promoting trips that include visits to zoos on its website – the first travel company ever to publicly make such a move.

Freedom for Animals applauds this movement towards more compassionate tourism and thanks these companies for choosing to put animals first! Though there is a way to go until animals are free from exploitation, these first steps will make a big impact for animals.