Human-wildlife conflict is becoming a visible problem in the management of protected areas in China. Understanding such conflict and finding mitigation measures have become critical research issues. The development of tourism is regarded as an important means of mitigating human-wildlife conflict, but existing studies have not yet systematically assessed the mitigating role of tourism. This study examines the questions of whether and how tourism can mitigate human-wildlife conflict through an integrative review. The study finds that the impacts of tourism on human-wildlife conflict are various. For communities within the radius, tourism can bring economic benefits to the community through revenue sharing programs and community participation, thus increase community tolerance of wildlife and promote human-wildlife coexistence. However, tourism development also has its limitations. First, the economic output of tourism is limited and cannot radiate to all communities that are in conflict with wildlife. Second, the distribution of economic benefits from tourism is unequal between outside companies and local communities, between different social classes, and between different power groups, resulting in few benefits for the poor. Third, the equal treatment of communities in different zones leads to less benefit for communities closer to protected areas that suffer from more wildlife damage, resulting in spatial injustice in the distribution. Fourth, some benefit-sharing projects focus on the construction of social infrastructure with long-term benefits, while ignoring short-term livelihood problems faced by individual households. The above problems make the mitigating effects of tourism uneven. Moreover, some tourism activities also have negative ecological impacts, leading to habituation of wildlife to humans and population growth, which in turn exacerbate community-wildlife conflicts around scenic areas. The paper concludes by suggesting that research on the distributive justice, ecological impacts, and sociocultural perspectives of tourism should be strengthened.

Wildlife tourism in the Asia-Pacific region has become popular and is expected to continue so after COVID-19. This paper provides a series of recommendations for sustainable development of wildlife tourism and discusses guidelines for wildlife viewing in the wild. Currently, wildlife viewing is based around biodiversity hotspots and iconic species. Opportunities for expanding viewing of plants and fungi are also discussed. Good practice criteria such as attention to effective protected area management, sound environmental policy, planning for growth in tourism numbers, management of overcrowding, tour guide training, attention to animal welfare, and monitoring the impacts of tourism on wildlife are considered. Promotion and marketing of wildlife tourism should also be highlighted. Key challenges include unsatisfactory protection of the wider environment, misinterpretation of what is required to achieve sustainability, and inadequate visitor management by park agencies and tour operators. The impact of COVID-19 on wildlife tourism provides the opportunity to reflect on previous wildlife tourism operations and to maintain and improve wildlife tourism in the future.

Wildlife tourism is an important manifestation of the public and welfare functions of national parks. The protection and management of wild animals should allow the sustainable use of wild animal resources, and both nature protection and sustainable development should be emphasized. Adaptive management is an important method of national park management, which can alleviate the contradiction between wildlife protection and recreational use. This study introduces foreign adaptive management theories and conducts in-depth analysis on three cases of Kruger National Park in Africa, Banff National Park in America, and Kakadu National Park in Australia in terms of management model, stakeholders, monitoring and evaluation, and functional zoning. Through analysis, the main experiences of adaptive management of wild animals in national parks are drawn: (1) establishing a sustainable national park system that connects the society; (2) building a coordination mechanism for stakeholders to promote participation and joint management; (3) establishing dynamic monitoring evaluation system and strengthening wildlife research; (4) evaluating ecological conditions scientifically and implementing dynamic zoning management of national parks. It is expected to provide a reference for the protection and recreational use of wild animals in the Chinese national parks.

Sustainable wildlife tourism can be achieved by protecting endangered species while maintaining high tourist satisfaction and ensuring meaningful tourist experience. As a deep emotional experience, the sense of awe can create vivid memory for tourists and enrich their meaningful experience. It also inspires deeper concern and respect for specific and even all wildlife species encountered. Therefore, ensuring tourists’ awe experience tend to be an important part of the sustainable development of wildlife tourism, which deserves more attentions from researchers. Rather than making a ground-breaking innovation, this study attempts to give some descriptive understanding of the 4 dimensions under awe experience: sense of time, connection, vastness, and accommodation. Taking elephant tourism in Sri Lanka as an example, three cases including Udawalawe National Park, Elephant Transit Home, and Pinnewala Elephant Orphanage were chosen to conduct quantitative research. Methods such as independent sample T-test and one-way ANOVA were used to analyze the mean differences of awe experience among groups of tourists with different demographic characteristics or travel behavior characteristics. The results show that most tourists have strong awe experience, but there are certain differences among tourists. In general, women, middle-aged people, tourists with higher education or a specific cultural connection to elephants are more likely to experience higher sense of awe. The sense of vastness and accommodation experienced by Asian tourists, especially those from Sri Lanka and India, is significantly higher than that of tourists from the West. And the sense of accommodation experienced by tourists visiting Pinnewala Elephant Orphanage is significantly higher than that of tourists visiting Elephant Transit Home.

A harmonious relationship between human and animal is key to the sustainable development of wildlife tourism. This study starts from animal ethics, takes online reviews as data source, and uses text mining, social network analysis, and IPA model analysis methods to analyze the differences in the embodied experience of tourists in wildlife tourist attractions with different ethical orientations. Conclusion are as follow: (1) Different ethical orientations affect the operation mode of wildlife tourism attractions. (2) From the perspective of embodied theory, wildlife tourism experience is multidimensional and complex that includes physical, situational, and cognitive-emotional experiences. Three layers and six dimensions are identified. (3) Because of the differences in the supply of wildlife tourism attractions with different ethical orientations, there is a structural difference between cognitive-based and physical-based tourist experiences.