Do not touch: understanding travelers’ implicit attitudes toward close wildlife interactions and the power of animal-welfare warning messages

Close physical interactions with captive wildlife, such as tiger petting or koala cuddling, are popular tourist attractions but raise significant concerns about animal welfare. Previous research has relied primarily on explicit self-reports, which may be influenced by social desirability and bias. This study addresses these limitations by comparing implicit and explicit attitudes toward close wildlife interactions among 1,071 participants in Germany and the UK, employing a Single-Category Implicit Association Test (SC-IAT) and a structured questionnaire. The results show that a negatively framed warning message highlighting animal welfare issues significantly reduced favorable attitudes on both explicit and implicit measures, with a particularly strong effect among women. The warning message had a greater impact on implicit (unconscious) attitudes than on explicit attitudes, indicating that travelers may not be fully aware of their underlying beliefs. Additionally, the Animal Attitude Scale was negatively correlated with both attitude measures, suggesting that greater concern for animal welfare is associated with less favorable views of close wildlife interactions. These findings underscore the value of implicit attitude measurement in tourism research and support the use of targeted warning messages and awareness campaigns to discourage participation in harmful wildlife attractions.