Chinese travel firms to halt selling elephant tours

Three prominent travel companies in China are the first in the country to take a stand against animal tourism 'torture.'

Beijing-based Caissa Touristic said it will stop marketing elephant rides and elephant entertainment shows across Asia, including Thailand, India, Sri Lanka and Nepal.

According to the company's assistant president Ge Mu, about 100,000 tourists partake in elephant tourism activities or watch shows each year, and accounts for 40% of all tourism programmes in Southeast Asia.

Travel websites fxtrip.com and zanadu.com also promised to sell only 'elephant-friendly' tours

Elephants 'suffer from multiple forms of torture' due their daily schedule serving tourists, said Zheng Yu, wildlife campaign manager at World Animal Protection.

A recent World Animal Protection report said the number of elephants used for entertainment purposes for tourists in Thailand has risen by about 30%.

Globally about 160 tourism companies have so far stopped offering elephant tourism programmes and one-off elephant attractions.

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Chinese travel agencies to end elephant-riding tours

One of China's largest travel agencies CAISSA Touristic Group announced on Wednesday that it will gradually stop providing all elephant non-friendly products to tourists.

CAISSA pledged that services, such as elephant rides and performances, will be first cancelled in southern Asian countries including India, Sri Lanka and Nepal by November and then in Thailand by the end of this year or the beginning of 2018, The Paper reported.

The 'elephant-friendly travel' promise was inked between CAISSA and the international organisation World Animal Protection (WAP) in a bid to end the cruel abuse of elephants in the tourist entertainment industry.

Ge Mu, assistant president of CAISSA, said that annually around 100,000 tourists will choose to order elephant rides from the company and 40 percent of its business in southeast Asia was represented by elephant riding and shows.

Two Chinese online travel platforms FXTrip.com and ZANADU have also recently joined the WAP-led initiative, which attracted more than 160 travel agencies worldwide, including TripAdvisor, Thomas Cook and TUI, over the past two years.

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