This is the first guide of its kind! It provides comprehensive and practical guidance on best practice for shark and ray tourist outlets.
Project AWARE let us know that they planned on creating a guide for best practices for Shark & Ray Sustainable Tourism. We decided to raise funds and support the initiative by contributing to the design of the guide.
In partnership with WWF and The Manta Trust, this guide, the first guide of its kind, was developed for the following reasons:
- Shark and Ray Tourism is increasingly popular. Businesses around the world provide a variety of activities to meet this demand, from boat-based spotting to guided snorkelling, cage viewing experiences and scuba diving.
- Over the next twenty years, the numbers of shark watchers could more than double if current trends continue. This equates to a projected $780 million in expenditure worldwide.
- There are now more than 400 well-established tourism operations globally interacting with around 30 species of sharks and rays.
The guide includes a toolkit with self-assessments, checklists and example codes of conduct. The aim is that all the participants will work to create and maintain well-managed marine tourism operations, conserve and protect local marine species and help benefit local communities that depend on activities related to these species.
Finally, after few months of work, the Shark & Ray Sustainable Tourism Guide has been launched online! The guide is freely available online. The more people that have access to the guide, the quicker we can spread best practice on sustainable marine tourism. We aim to have copies printed to distribute to operators who otherwise might not have access.
Thank you for your support and donations that have helped make this guide possible!
