From leadership research to district action: Understanding Tourists’ Perceptions of Animal Welfare, Governance, and Conservation: Evidence from the Panda Base

AI-assisted editorial implementation guide. Proposed district actions are separate from the original authors’ findings and recommendations. Independent peer review of this guide is not asserted.

Read source Search paper agent CC BY 4.0

Evidence and transfer

Education-related source: verify which participants, institutions and outcomes were actually studied before district adoption. Source publication type: research-article. License and identity checks do not establish study quality or causality.

Original authors’ abstract, reproduced under the source license:

Simple Summary This study examined tourist perceptions of governance, conservation, and animal welfare at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding using governance-welfare-conservation indicators. Such insights are critical given the ethical challenges posed by growing public interest in wildlife-based tourism. Based on over 1000 survey responses, visitors generally rated the Base’s management practices positively, particularly in restricting visitor contact with animals and promoting conservation benefits. Social media experience was found to influence perceptions, with more engaged visitors providing higher evaluations. Despite overall positive views, the findings highlight the need to further enhance visitors’ knowledge and awareness of key welfare and conservation indicators to support ethical wildlife tourism practices. Keywords: governance, conservation, welfare, visitor perception, Panda Base, wildlife tourist attraction Abstract Wildlife viewing has long been a central feature of tourism. However, growing concerns over the welfare of animals involved have raised critical questions about human management and the use of wildlife. In response, scholars have developed frameworks to assess and guide the operations of animal-based attractions. This paper applies such a framework to the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in China, empirically examining visitor perceptions of animal welfare management practices. Drawing on survey data from over 1000 visitors, the study finds that, overall, tourists hold positive evaluations of the Base’s governance, welfare, and conservation practices. However, these perceptions are influenced by factors such as prior exposure to panda-related social media and individual knowledge of animal welfare, highlighting the role of mediated experiences in shaping visitor judgments. The findings underscore the need for further research on ethical wildlife tourism practices and suggest that engaging and empowering tourists—through education, participatory evaluation, and digital platforms—can enhance both public awareness and the effectiveness of conservation and welfare initiatives.

Study methods

The Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding (Panda Base), located near the city center of Chengdu, is the world’s largest ex situ Giant Panda conservation facility. According to its official website, approximately 230 Giant Pandas reside at the site. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, visitor numbers grew from 1.89 million in 2014 to 9 million in 2019. Panda Base has been a pioneer in wildlife scientific education in China and has received numerous national and provincial awards for its outstanding contributions to public wildlife conservation. In 2020, the UN World Tourism Organization recognized Panda Base in its report Sustainable Development of Wildlife Tourism in Asia and the Pacific, noting that the facility represents “an interim step towards the establishment of protected areas harboring wild sustainable populations” and highlighting its progress “in the breeding, release, and survival of pandas in the wild.”

Limitations

While this study provides valuable insights into tourist perceptions of governance, conservation, and animal welfare at the Panda Base, several limitations must be acknowledged. First, the study relies on self-reported perceptions, which may be influenced by social desirability bias or affective attachment to Giant Pandas, potentially inflating positive evaluations. Second, the survey captures a snapshot in time at a single site, limiting generalizability to other wildlife tourism destinations and to longitudinal trends. Third, although our findings highlight social media as an influential factor, we did not directly measure the quality or content of these mediated experiences, which may vary widely and shape visitor perceptions differently.

A 90-day district inquiry

Days 1–15 · Appraise. Read the source methods, recruitment, comparator, outcomes and limitations. Record how the study setting differs from your district and which claim the design can support.
Days 16–30 · Design. Select one recurring district decision. Publish the decision owner, evidence requirements, consultation process and appeal route; test the process on a bounded low-risk decision. Agree participation, privacy protections, baseline and stopping rules before starting.
Days 31–60 · Observe. Collect the pre-agreed measures, keep a log of implementation changes and invite confidential voluntary feedback. Preserve existing support for staff and learners.
Days 61–90 · Decide. Track decision time, unresolved objections, documented reasons, appeals and access differences. Review whether the process changes who can participate and who carries the burden. Make a dated decision to stop, revise or extend the inquiry.

Board decision brief

Present the local problem, source setting, evidence limits, intervention, responsible owner, total cost, measured changes and uncertainty. Separate staff perceptions, implementation measures and student learning outcomes.

Attribution and reuse

David Fennell; Yulei Guo; Richard Butler. Understanding Tourists’ Perceptions of Animal Welfare, Governance, and Conservation: Evidence from the Panda Base. Animals : an Open Access Journal from MDPI (2025-12-10). https://doi.org/10.3390/ani15243548

Prepared 2026-11-07. Source authorship and DOI are preserved. The abstract and source passages are attributed extracts; this editorial guide is offered under the same CC BY 4.0 license.