GetYourGuide, a global travel company, sells tickets to entertainment venues like Gatorland in Florida, profiting from the abuse of alligators. Gatorland has recently been issued an official warning for its animal care.
(This blog post is part of a series that draws from World Animal Protection’s recent Making Memories Misery report.)
While cruelty to dolphins and elephants in entertainment venues is undeniable, they’re not the only species to be abused for entertainment. Gatorland, located in Florida, regularly forces alligators to perform cruel shows and endure wild animal encounters with the public.
A native species to Florida, American alligators are incredibly important species for the southeastern United States. During Gatorland’s performances, these intelligent and sensitive species are dragged around a stadium by their tails and routinely sat on. Alligators also have their mouths forcefully clamped shut while a Gatorland employee wrestles them to the ground.
Heartbreakingly enough, World Animal Protection’s investigator witnessed an alligator performing who repeatedly attempted to escape throughout the performance. Alligators are also unable to escape being used as photo props at the venue.
Alligators are used prior to shows to give guests an opportunity to take photos with the animal. The guests, both children and adults, would then sit on top of the alligator, while another area of the venue had a juvenile alligator and a snake, both used for children’s photo ops. Both the adult alligators and the juveniles used for photos have their mouths taped shut, an act that causes extreme stress in reptiles. In fact, our research found that taping the mouth of a crocodile shut was more stressful than stun guns.
Unfortunately, alligators aren’t the only animals suffering at Gatorland. Budgies, also known as parakeets, are confined to a free-flight aviary for interactions with visitors.
Because Gatorland’s “budgie barns” are packed so densely with the birds—hundreds in one aviary—the animals are routinely stomped to death or endure broken legs from human interaction and traffic. A sole employee in the barn was reminding visitors to “slide their feet” in an effort to stop animals from being stepped on while our investigator was there. Despite this, however, our investigator noted that the aviary had at least 50 people in it at this time, 15 of which were children who couldn’t fully understand how to interact with delicate birds in a way to avoid injury.
While that’s an avoidable tragedy in itself, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) cited Gatorland in 2023 for not having any veterinary plans for the birds, and the venue was issued an official warning in 2024 for failure to establish and maintain a veterinary care program for the budgies.
Places like Gatorland continue to thrive despite animal cruelty for one simple reason: tourism operators continue to promote them as fun and appealing activities, encouraging visitors who are likely unaware of the cruelty animals are forced to endure to see these attractions as acceptable.
One of those tourism operators who continues to promote animal abuse is GetYourGuide, which sells guided travel tours, tickets to tourist attractions, and excursions around the world. Our survey of GetYourGuide’s offerings, exposed in our Making Memories Misery report found that the company continues to sell some of the worst captive wildlife venues in the world, exploiting a wide range of species including dolphins, elephants, non-human primates, turtles, and sloths in addition to budgies and alligators.
GetYourGuide is no stranger to profiting from cruelty, as the venue continues to rake in profits from Miami Seaquarium—a venue so cruel that the county of Miami-Dade recently terminated Miami Seaquarium’s lease due to animal welfare concerns—and venues who have ties to the cruel and heinous Taiji dolphin hunts.
World Animal Protection, along with PETA and Welttierschutzgesellschaft (WTG) recently protested GetYourGuide in Berlin, where the company is headquartered, with over a dozen supporters joining us.
In addition to the protest, World Animal Protection launched a billboard near the company’s headquarters calling out GetYourGuide and a mobile LED billboard vehicle circulated throughout Berlin as GetYourGuide employees arrive for the company’s flagship Summer Summit’s all-staff gathering.
Both consumers and the travel industry have the power to stop the wild capture, captive breeding, and continued exploitation of animals for entertainment venues. It’s up to us as consumers to boycott GetYourGuide until it removes cruel wildlife entertainment venues and implements a progressive animal welfare policy.
Take action now and demand that GetYourGuide remove its sales of wildlife entertainment venues, including Gatorland.