Communicating conservation: a content analysis of cetacean based tour operator websites

Tourism activities involving cetaceans have gained popularity , with 2009 estimates that activities such as “whale watching [attract] approximately 13 million people in 119 different countries generating US$2.1 billion” (O’Connor , Campbell, Cortez, & Knowles, 2009). The term whale watching is used throughout this paper to describe watching of all wild cetaceans (e.g. whales, dolphins, porpoises). The low - cost entry for small operators to enter the whale watching market makes it an attractive segment to take advantage of. As such, growth of whale watching in developing countries doubled in a decade ( Mustika, Birtles, Everingham & Marsh, 2013), and is predicted to account for at least half of future growth within the industry (Mustika, Welters, Ryan, D’Lima, Sorongon - Yap, Jutapruet & Peter, 2016) .