Responsible Travel, a UK online travel agency, announced that the company will withdraw and stop offering tours that include zoo visits to its consumers. Said travel agency is known to be one of the largest promoters of environmentally-responsible holiday tours.
Responsible Travel is the first travel agency in the world to consider dropping zoos in trips that the company offers. Aside from the said endeavor, Responsible Travel also pledges to continue working with rescue centers and animal facilities.
Responsible Travel has more than 5,000 responsible holiday tours and works with 375 tour operators. The online travel agency said that keeping the animals, especially those which are endangered, in zoos is inhumane and there is no any valid reason for the captivity of animals.
In a report by BBC News, Responsible Travel CEO Justin Francis came up to a realization that the zoos are no longer significant after he watched a program in BBC TV called "Should we close our zoos?" "They are relics of the past, and the arguments to justify keeping animals in captivity no longer stand up," Francis said.
Six of Responsible Travel's trips with zoo visits that were posted on its website have already been removed, The Guardian reports. While no zoos from the United Kingdom are involved in the drop made by the agency, most of the trips included zoos from Southeast Asian countries.
Aside from the withdrawal of holiday trips, Responsible Travel has proposed a new set of guidelines that the company will observe with regard to the types of animal facilities it will still continue to include in its tour offerings. However, Responsible Travel confirms that the company will not omit rescue and rehabilitation centers, as well as breeding center for rare animals in its trips.
Francis has also expressed his hopes that other travel companies will follow Responsible Travel's purpose. Further, he asks them to join Responsible Travel in making a move towards change in connection with the unnecessary and unethical actions of zoos all over the world.
