Camel Genetic Resources Conservation through Tourism: A Key Sociocultural Approach of Camelback Leisure Riding

Abstract

Camels are exotic elements, which can be comprised within adventure travel companies promoting ecotourism activities. Such recreations contribute to sustainable livelihoods for local communities and educational empowerment towards nature and its conservation. At present, some local camel breeds’ survival reduces to this animal-based leisure industry and its reliability to perform and promote customized services accurately. By conducting an on-site questionnaire to customers participating in camelback riding tours, we assessed the motivational factors affecting participation, satisfaction, and loyalty in this tourism segment that may have made it socially differentiated. The sixfold combination of staff performance, culture geography, diverse and humane close interaction, camel behavior and performance, sociotemporal context, and positive previous experience involves the elemental dimensions that explain customer satisfaction and return intention probability within this entertainment business. Customer knowledge is essential for stakeholders to build personalized riding experiences and align profits with environmental sustainability and biodiversity mainstream concerns into their everyday operations. In turn, domestic camel tourist rides could be managed as a viable path to nature conservation by helping endangered local breeds to avoid their functional devaluation and potential extinction.

Social Network Analysis of the Stakeholders Involved in the Dromedary Sector in the Mediterranean Region

“…In the Canary Islands (Spain), the survival of dromedary camels (Canarian camels) is apparently relegated to tourism although travel agencies do not appear to include camelbased leisure activities in their tour proposals [39]. These authors highlight the urgent need to take practical measures to guarantee the long-term viability of this endangered breed and conducted a socio-cultural analysis of the camel-based local tourism sector.…”

Determination of breeding criteria for gait proficiency in leisure riding and racing dromedary camels: a stepwise multivariate analysis of factors predicting overall biomechanical performance

“…Thus, the initiation of the activity of the National Paradors in the late 1950s and the emergence of tourism as an economic activity in the archipelago contributed to the regression of the camel census in rural areas and their functional reorientation. That is, the main productive niche of the camel in the Canary Islands has since become tourist leisure, in which both animal behavior and physical conformation/performance have a notable impact ( 6 ).…”