Education on marine mammal tours – But what do tourists want to learn?

• Interpretation and education have become integral parts of marine wildlife tours.
• Interpretation content design often does not match the desires of tourists.
• Tourists are overall very satisfied with whale and dolphin tours in New Zealand.
• Tourists would have liked to receive more information during the tours.
• They want to learn about the dolphins/whales, and less about the marine environment.

With continuing growth of the tourism industry over the past decades, the demand for interpretive experiences and education on marine wildlife tours has increased as well. Research showed that tourists expect an educational component on marine wildlife tours, but it remains somewhat vague what content tour participants expect. This study built on Lück's (2003) work and investigated participants on whale and dolphin tours in New Zealand with regards to the satisfaction with, and the desired educational content on these tours. Distributed questionnaires at two locations in New Zealand included closed-ended questions in Likert-type scale format, and open ended questions. Results show that tourists on whale and dolphin tours in New Zealand display high satisfaction rates, but also would like to learn more about wildlife and the sea in general. Results support the introduction of well-developed interpretation programmes on whale and dolphin tours.