Tourists who see pandas at China’s leading panda zoos consider it a spiritual experience but are unsure how they can help conserve them, a UQ tourism study has found.
Study author, UQ PhD student Julia Chen, spent two months quizzing tourists about their giant panda ecotourism experience in China covering their travel motivations and visitor profiles.
Ms Chen was based at the Chengdu and Wolong Giant Panda Research Centres in the Sichuan Province, which house the most captive giant pandas in the world.
She said there were differences between Western and Chinese visitors’ environmental perceptions and wildlife tourism experiences.
“Chinese tourists placed greater importance in the spiritual experience than Western visitors,” Ms Chen said.
“This might be because many Chinese visitors felt that seeing the co-existence between wildlife and humans represents the traditional Chinese Taoist philosophy of harmony between man and nature.
“This may have fulfilled the spiritual values in Chinese visitors' ecotourism experience, but not in Western visitors.”
The Springfield Lakes resarcher said she did the study to increase visitors’ conservation awareness and learning.
“A lot of zoos put big conservation signs around, but do not explain to visitors why and how to conserve,” she said.
“We need to educate Chinese visitors about practical ways to contribute to conservation.
“We could tell them that in order to let the pandas roam free in nature we could help by making donations or become a zoo volunteer to help with bamboo planting.
“It will be important to take a cross-cultural approach and develop ecotourism management and conservation learning that is more suited to Chinese culture.”
Ms Chen was supervised by UQ Tourism Head Professor Roy Ballantyne and UQ Tourism Senior Research Fellow Dr Jan Packer, who have also worked with the Chengdu Centre.
MEDIA: Ms Julia Chen (07 3346 8717, julia.chen@uq.edu.au)
