The number of cetacean watching tourism operations in developing countries has doubled in the past decade. Practices are typically unregulated and not informed by research, especially research into the human dimensions of the tourist experience. Dolphin watching tourism at Lovina, Bali, started in the late 1980s when local fishers formed self-regulating cooperatives. Up to 180 dedicated operators use small fishing vessels to carry passengers to watch dolphins close to shore. Most tourists come from western countries, although the industry also attracts Asian visitors. Most visitors are tertiary-educated. Tourist satisfaction ranges from low to medium. While there was no significant difference between the average satisfaction of western and Asian tourists, the associated variables were different. The satisfaction of western tourists was associated with encounter management, preferred number of boats and the number of dolphins seen. Encounter management was the only variable associated with the satisfaction of Asian tourists. Satisfaction was positively associated with willingness to recommend the tour: western respondents who felt neutral to very comfortable with their dolphin encounters were more likely to promote the tour. Better understanding of the tourist experience is crucial in designing sustainable marine wildlife tourism in developing countries; such research appears to be rare.

As a hotspot of species diversity and fishing pressure, Indonesia is a global priority for the conservation of sharks, rays and their cartilaginous relatives (herein “sharks”). The high value marine tourism industry in Indonesia can create economic incentives for protecting and sustainably managing marine ecosystems and species, including sharks. This study estimates the economic value of shark and ray tourism in Indonesia and explores tourist preferences and local community perceptions of the tourism industry to understand the current and potential future role of this industry in shark and ray conservation. We identified 24 shark tourism hotspots across 14 provinces, with primary data collected from 365 tourists and 84 local community members over six case study sites. We use Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) and travel efforts to extrapolate expenditures to other tourism sites. We estimate that at least 188,931 dedicated or partially dedicated shark tourists visit Indonesia each year. The median annual expenditures of these shark tourists is estimated at USD 22 million (for 2017), accounting for at least 7% of the total USD 1 billion marine tourism revenue in Indonesia in 2017 and 1.45× the value of annual shark exports in the country (inflation-adjusted to 2017 values). If sharks were absent from the surveyed sites, Indonesia’s tourism industry could lose ∼25% of these dive tourist expenditures. Despite this considerable value, our study indicates a mismatch between the absolute economic value of shark and ray tourism and its role in providing an incentive for conservation. Results from interviews with local communities in or near shark and ray tourism sites indicate that shark fishers are not well placed to receive direct economic benefits from shark and ray tourism. Since overfishing is the primary threat to shark populations, failure to engage with and appropriately incentivize these stakeholders will be detrimental to the success of Indonesia’s shark conservation efforts. If shark populations continue to decline due to insufficient conservation actions, the tourism industry could suffer economic losses from shark and ray tourism of more than USD 121 million per annum by 2027, as well as detrimental impacts on species, marine ecosystems, fisheries and people.

Dolphin-watching tourism is growing globally. In developing countries, the typically low environmental awareness of operators and poorly enforced or non-existent regulations exacerbate risks to wildlife. Ecological indicators like behavioural responses are useful to assess wildlife tourism, but obtaining such data is slow and expensive. We modified the Driver–Pressure–State–Impact–Response (DPSIR) framework to rapidly assess the risk of dolphin-watching tourism harming, displacing or causing local extinction to dolphin populations, using human dimension data to complement limited ecological data. We assessed industries at seven dolphin-watching sites in six countries in Asia: Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines. All sites have reached or almost reached financial saturation except Cambodia and Malaysia. We find high risk to dolphins at the sites in India and Indonesia and intermediate risk at the site in Cambodia. Pending more ecological data, the risk at Thailand, the Philippines, and Malaysian sites might be low. Our analysis also indicates site-specific conservation recommendations for Driver, Pressure and Response. We suggest that the DPSIR framework is useful to assess the risk of a wildlife watching industry, even when the impact is uncertain due to insufficient ecological data.