Encouraging Respectful Wildlife Viewing Among Tourists: Roles for Social Marketing, Regulatory Information, Symbolic Barriers, and Enforcement

Background: The practice of viewing animals in captivity is losing popularity among tourists, who would rather observe wildlife in their natural environments. A laudable sustainability goal is to provide enjoyable viewing possibilities while also protecting wildlife. Focus of the Article: This study contrasted a social marketing campaign that promoted replacement behaviors to regulatory signage in persuading individuals to respect the viewing distance guideline for Hawaiian green sea turtles. The characteristics of one of the study sites also offered the opportunity to study the impacts of symbolic barriers and enforcement from authority-like figures on people's compliance. Research Question: The study addresses three research questions: (1) Can a social marketing-based approach encourage respectful wildlife viewing? (2) How does the approach compare to one providing simplistic information about the behavior and associated laws? (3) How do symbolic barriers and enforcement by authority-like figures add impact to influencing respectful wildlife viewing? Program Design/Approach: The Amazing from Afar campaign was designed with insights from federal natural resource managers, existing literature on tourists' psychology and goals, and key informant interviews with local residents. The campaign promoted replacement behaviors of taking forced perspective photos of sea turtles and was evaluated alongside other techniques to encourage respectful viewing. Importance to the Social Marketing Field: This article demonstrates the added impact on people's adherence to wildlife viewing distances achievable through social marketing relative to stating rules/laws and putting up symbolic barriers. Plus, it illustrates how symbolic barriers and enforcement can enhance impact. Methods: Research took place over two studies on Oahu (n = 1,437) and the Island of Hawaii (n = 10,217) using a quasi-experimental design where the control conditions reflected existing efforts at the site. Using naturalistic observation, we categorized and counted people at various distances from basking sea turtles before and during the social marketing campaign. Results: Findings showed regulatory information signs located near the sea turtles positively impacted people's compliance with the viewing distance guideline, and the social marketing campaign improved compliance even further. The symbolic barrier could help or hurt compliance depending on how close sea turtles got to its edges, but compliance was over 90% with the social marketing campaign in place. Recommendations: Natural resource managers and conservationists should carefully consider how regulations/enforcement, environmental design, and marketing can work together to achieve wildlife protection while preserving fulfilling viewing opportunities. Limitations: The field research relying on observations of people's behavior did not allow for assurances of exposure to signage, and in some cases, the symbolic barriers could have been overlooked as well. Instead, there could have been descriptive normative cues from others as it was common for multiple parties to be viewing at once.

Alii Beach, Oahu Island

Punaluu Beach, Hawaii Island

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We collected primary data through observations of people's interactions on beaches with basking sea turtles. Behavior of all individuals within 25 feet of turtles during the observation period were recorded.

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multiple observers recorded data and were trained on protocols and inter-observer reliability