Thomas Cook Group elephant petition update
News
Thomas Cook Group is now claiming that they no longer offer elephant rides and shows to any of their customers – but this simply isn’t true.
We have a dossier of evidence gained over the last three months until as recently as today - that proves that The Thomas Cook Group is still selling cruel elephant rides and shows to customers.
Only this morning two of their agents in the UK were still selling elephant rides and excursions to Thailand and knew nothing of this ‘change’.
Reaching out to cooperate
Sadly, despite our repeated attempts to work in partnership with Thomas Cook Group to end the cruel use of elephants for entertainment they are yet to take global action. Only last week, their Group’s Head of CSR admitted he was struggling to get ‘buy-in’ on this issue from the company board.
It has taken the launch of our petition as part of our global campaign “Wildlife. Not Entertainers” for them to agree to meet with us at all. In little over 24 hours more than 100,000 people around the world have signed up to demand that Thomas Cook Group sign our Elephant Friendly Tourism Pledge. When we meet we will be asking them to do just this and prove that these are not hollow words, but a firm global commitment to stop offering these cruel rides and shows.
As responsible companies within the travel industry know, our first approach is always to work with industry partners to end animal cruelty. Last week, after nearly two years of dialogue with us, Thomas Cook Northern Europe (Norway, Sweden, Finland & Denmark) finally agreed that they will remove elephant rides and shows from their upcoming winter program. But the Thomas Cook Group is yet to make a global commitment, and continue to offer cruel elephant entertainment in other countries.
To date we have worked with over 60 travel companies globally to end their promotion of elephant rides and shows. The Travel Corporation, which includes Contiki and Trafalgar Tours, is the latest major player to sign the Elephant-friendly Tourism Pledge.
When we meet we will be asking Thomas Cook to sign our Elephant Friendly Tourism Pledge to prove that these are not hollow words, but a firm commitment to ending these cruel rides and shows.