Animal tourism workers as stakeholders

Animals in tourism engage in many forms of labour, from pulling strength, speed, riding, and drafting among others. Animal bodies play an important role as a source of power or comfort and curiosity for tourists watching or touching them. Although animals do not receive any direct financial compensation for their work, their human owners provide for their food, water and shelter with part of the money paid by tourists. Through their work and symbolic value, animals generate significant economic benefits to both their human owners and the tourist destinations where their labour is performed. Considering the role of animal labour in tourism and other organizational contexts, we found important to develop new ways of understanding stakeholders and their relationships. Using an ethics of care framework, we argue that animals are not only tourism workers, but that they are also tourism stakeholders. By drawing upon 11 interviews conducted in Finnish Lapland with animal-based tourism entrepreneurs and social media content produced by international tourists, we work towards a relational understanding of stakeholders, which gives primacy to the social bonds and emotions that exists between both the human and animal tourism workers.