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Whale and Dolphin Watching, and Visitors’ Experiential Responses: A Qualitative Study on Comments in a Travel Forum

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Wildlife Tourism, Environmental Learning and Ethical Encounters

Part of the book series: Geoheritage, Geoparks and Geotourism ((GGAG))

Abstract

This chapter will consider the history of whale and dolphin watching as a tourism activity, based on visitors’ experiences. The analysis was based on 468 visitors’ comments on a familiar travel forum under the four categories developed in Ballantyne, Packer and Sutherland’s research in (Tourism Management 32(4):770–779, 2011b). These categories are sensory impressions, emotional affinity, reflective response, and behavioural response. The comments were analysed using a content analysis method. It was found that the behavioural response dimension reported by visitors was lower than the other experience dimensions. The study concluded with some suggestions for both business owners and wildlife tourism researchers.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    “Cetacean” comes from the Latin “cetus” (whale) and Greek “ketos” (huge-fish) and, particularly in the literature, refers to whales and dolphins (O’Neill et al. 2004; Filby et al. 2015; Higham et al. 2016).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Tourism and Hotel Management, Batman University, Campus West Raman, Batman, Turkey

    Serhat Harman & S. Emre Dilek

Authors
  1. Serhat Harman
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  2. S. Emre Dilek
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Correspondence to Serhat Harman .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Business and Tourism, Southern Cross University, Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia

    Ismar Borges de Lima

  2. Wildlife Tourism Australia (WTA) , Rathdowney, Queensland, Australia

    Ronda J. Green

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Harman, S., Emre Dilek, S. (2017). Whale and Dolphin Watching, and Visitors’ Experiential Responses: A Qualitative Study on Comments in a Travel Forum. In: Borges de Lima, I., Green, R. (eds) Wildlife Tourism, Environmental Learning and Ethical Encounters. Geoheritage, Geoparks and Geotourism. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-55574-4_11

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