This research letter introduces a new insight into the power of social media in tourism development using a case study from Ōkunoshima Island in Hiroshima, Japan. The island has been experiencing an unprecedented tourism boom since 2014, when videos posted by social media led to an increase in international tourists in a formerly domestic destination. The results of our structured interviews suggest that tourists acquired information about the island through social media. This result implicated social media’s power in developing tourism in peripheral regional areas, which are often left out from the international tourism circuit.

The COVID‐19 outbreak is having an unprecedented effect on human society, but how is it affecting the mammals that people live with? Mammals that were part of tourism experiences are of concern, because they impact on people’s health and livelihoods and, since many of them are now dependent on people, we urge consideration of the status of these mammals as a result of the pandemic. We provide a systematic review of the impacts the COVID‐19 outbreak has had on mammals in tourism venues. We examine reports of diverse species in various settings responding to changes in their environments that are occurring because of the pandemic. We searched the scholarly literature, preprints, and online news sources using combinations of the search terms ‘tourism’, ‘animals’, ‘wildlife’, ‘coronavirus’, and ‘COVID‐19’. We searched Web of Science, SCOPUS, EBSCOHost, JSTOR, bioRxiv, OSFPREPRINTS, GDELT, Google News, and National Public Radio, and analysed a total of 39 news articles, one peer‐reviewed article, and six preprints. In total, we identified 92 distinct animal reports representing 48 mammal species. We used an existing tourism classification schema to categorise each article based on the situation reported, with the new addition of one context. We classified 92 separate animal reports in 46 articles into four (of six possible) contexts: mammals as attractions (n = 40 animal reports), mammals as commodities (n = 33), mammals as threats (n = 2), and unusual sightings of mammals (n = 17). Shortage of food, in danger of losing home, having an enriched/relaxed environment, spatial expansion, disease transmission, and poaching are the major impacts or events reported in these contexts. We suggest changes for each context with respect to how people interface with mammals, with the goal of improving the lives of mammals and the people dependent on them.

Previous studies have reported the negative impacts of tourism on nonhuman primates (NHPs) and tourists and advocated the improvement of tourism management, yet what constitutes good quality management remains unclear. We explored whether rates of macaque aggression and self-directed behaviors (SDBs) differed under the supervision of two park ranger teams at the Valley of the Wild Monkeys (VWM) in Mt. Huangshan, Anhui Province, China. The two ranger teams provisioned and managed a group of macaques on an alternating monthly basis. Monkey, tourist and ranger behaviors were collected from August 16–September 30, 2012. Macaque aggression and SDB rates did not differ significantly under the management of the two teams. Overall, there was little intervention in tourist-macaque interactions by park rangers, and even when rangers discouraged tourists’ undesirable behaviors, tourist interactions with monkeys persisted. Furthermore, only one or sometimes two park rangers managed monkeys and tourists, and rangers established dominance over the monkeys to control them. In order to effectively manage tourists and monkeys by a single park ranger, we recommend that rangers: (1) prohibit tourists from feeding; (2) move around the viewing platform more frequently; and (3) limit the number of tourists each visiting session.

Sika deer (Cervus nippon) on Miyajima Island in Hiroshima, Japan, are accustomed to a human environment and close tourist-deer interactions occur. In 2008, city officials banned deer feeding in response to an increasing number of human-deer conflicts. Nevertheless, this regulation remains ineffective. In this study, food-derived interactions between tourists and deer were analyzed, and a faecal analysis was conducted to examine the effects of potentially beneficial bacteria on the digestive system of deer. Over 64 hours of observation, a total of 397 tourist-deer interactions were recorded. Most interactions involved tourists’ food purchases from street stalls (49.6%). The initiator of each interaction was recorded for 267 events (67.3%), and it was found that deer initiated nearly twice as many interactions as tourists (tourists: 93 events; deer: 174 events). However, feeding occurred in only 11.5% of deer-initiated interactions, while feeding occurred in 50.5% of tourist-initiated interactions. The analysis of gastrointestinal bacterial community compositions showed that deer in the tourism district possessed a lower portion of the order Lactobacellales than deer in the non-tourism district. This was presumably due to different food sources, indicating that the human-influenced environment, of which feeding is one element, could affect the physical health of the deer.

This study’s aim is to elucidate what tourists’ encounter with feral animals entail—an infrequently studied concept in the literature—by building on the discussion of authenticity in wildlife tourism experiences using the case of feral rabbits. Netnography was used to examine tourists’ comments and photos in 386 TripAdvisor reviews written in Japanese and English about Ōkunoshima Island in Hiroshima, Japan. The findings indicate that the space where tourist and feral rabbit interactions occur can be compared to a ‘natural petting zoo’ and a theme park, where tourists’ seek entertainment rather than authentic experiences. Even uncontrolled, chaotic wildness—the characteristic of feral animals—was consumed by tourists who found it entertaining. Unmediated interactions allowed tourists to be fully in charge of interactions with the rabbits especially through feeding. Their encounters with the rabbits especially left tourists in Japanese reviews with feeling of healing. Widely adopted conservation-based wildlife tourism frameworks are inadequate for managing tourist–feral rabbit encounters because if they were adapted, the rabbits would be eradicated. Therefore, a policy for Ōkunoshima Island that balances the needs of tourists, rabbits, and the surrounding environment is needed.

The success of nature-based tourism destinations depends on the sustainable use of common pool resources (CPRs). More often than not, tourism demands compete for these resources, exerting pressure on them, resulting in decline of the CPRs. Managing tourism and environmental resources has become extremely important, but also more complex, as the interests of different stakeholders are intertwined across international, national, and local levels. Hence, this study aimed to investigate how stakeholder groups perceive the issues relating to the environment using Yakushima Island, Japan for a case study. Quantitative data were collected by administering a questionnaire to residents and tourism practitioners, while qualitative data were gathered through semi-structured interviews conducted with organizations involved with tourism and environmental management in Yakushima. The study reveals that the underlying environmental issues in Yakushima result from an increase in tourists and controversial management of deer populations. Both residents and tourism practitioners indicated that more trash in the community was the most significant impact of tourism on the environment. Some perceptions were contradictory. Management authorities noted an increase in the deer population, which needs to be controlled to prevent damage to natural vegetation. Most tour guides reported a decrease in the sighting of deer along hiking trails, frustrating the genuine expectations of the tourist. The connection of the deer issue to tourism turned out to be very complex, as an overabundance of deer endangers parts of the vegetation tourists come to enjoy, while at the same time deer are an important part of the tourists’ experience. Different perceptions on deer by different stakeholders add to this complexity, which needs to be taken into consideration for proper management of tourists and deer in the future.