Sustainable safari practices: Proximity to wildlife, educational intervention, and the quality of experience

This research examines the perceived quality of experience for safari tourists within the Ngorongoro Conservation Area in relation to wildlife viewing proximities and the potential of an educational intervention as a management strategy to mitigate adverse impacts of safari participant crowding. Crowding originates from the safari tourists’ preference to obtain close proximity to large mammals, in this case, lions. Recognizing these preferences and the associated impacts to animal behavior defined in the previous research, we developed and delivered a survey instrument designed to measure the perceived quality of experience of the safari tourist while controlling for the viewing proximity variable. The survey instrument involves participants responding to stock photos selected to represent the safari-tour experience, using a Likert type rating scale. Using a ‘pre-treatment’ and ‘post treatment’ protocol, we measure an educational management intervention that correlates the impact of intervention on safari participants’ perceptions of the quality of safari experience based on proximity to animals. Our findings revealed a statistically significant relationship between an educational intervention conveying the adverse impacts of crowding on lion behavior and safari tourists’ perception of a quality experience in relation of proximity to lions