The travel website plans to stop selling tickets to attractions that offer animal interactions Leading travel-review website, Tripadvisor, along with its ticket-booking company Viator, announced the new policy this week.As from early next year, it says, it plans to stop selling tickets to attractions that offer such activities as elephant riding, tiger petting and swimming with dolphins.The company has always prohibited reviews or bookings of places where captive wild animals are killed or injured for sport, such as bullfights and canned hunting. But this latest move takes things a step further.story_article_left1CEO Stephen Kaufer said the move was a cry for better animal care in destinations around the world."We believe the end result of our efforts will be enabling travellers to make more thoughtful choices about whether to visit an animal attraction," he said."At the same time, we want to celebrate those destinations and attractions that are leaders in caring for animals and those in the tourism industry that help further the cause of animal welfare, conservation and the preservation of endangered species."Other companies, including Intrepid Travel, Responsible Travel and STA Travel, have already removed experiences such as elephant rides from their programmes.There has been a growing campaign by many organisations to bring an end to the craze for human interaction with wild animals, based on claims that the animals are often abused, starved, restrained or stressed, not least in the course of training.There has been a lot of criticism by rights activists about the techniques used to train elephants in captivity in a number of Southeast Asian countries.Similarly, lion-cub petting operations face accusations of cruelty for the sake of cash.The website cannedlion.org urges tourists to consider where all these cubs have come from."The harsh reality is that they are the product of factory farming. The cubs are taken from their mothers shortly after birth."It is very cruel to remove a newborn cub from its mother when only a few days old, to be used in an industry only interested in making money."No true sanctuary will have any cubs or allow you to walk with predators."The use of wild animals in captivity for human amusement also encourages the capture of more animals in the wild.block_quotes_start Although Tripadvisor will stop selling tickets to such attractions, it will not ban readers from posting reviews about them on the website if they choose to go block_quotes_endTripAdvisor's new policy follows six months of discussions between the US-based company and several animal-welfare organisations, including People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta) and Global Wildlife Conservation.Other animal activities such as horseback riding and children's petting zoos will not be affected by the policy. Nor will supervised feeding and conservation programmes where visitors might interact with animals."Volun-tourism" for the preservation of endangered species is also not affected.Although Tripadvisor will stop selling tickets to such attractions, it will not ban readers from posting reviews about them on the website if they choose to go.However, any review of such activity will carry a paw-shaped icon, linking to a portal aimed at educating people about the issues surrounding animal rights and the dangers such activities may pose to wild animals...