Spatial and temporal patterns in wildlife tourism encounters and how people feel about them based on social media data from South Africa

With well-developed tourism infrastructure and high biodiversity, including charismatic mammals, wildlife tourism is popular in South Africa. But where and when do people encounter wildlife, how does this vary among species and land-tenures, and how do people feel about their encounters? To assess the potential of social media to provide insights into wildlife tourism, metadata from 22,002 images across South Africa posted by 9762 people to the photo-sharing platform Flickr were obtained on 15 March 2021 and analysed using standard spatio-temporal and sentiment analyses methods. Total wildlife-encounter-days, and specific hot spots of encounters varied among elephant, white and black rhinos, lion, cheetah, giraffe, leopard, zebra, buffalo, hippopotamus, hyena and African wild dog. Most encounters were in national parks and other government protected areas (59%), particularly Kruger National Park (33%), with private protected areas (25%) also important. Encounters were predominantly within the species’ traditional geographic ranges. These encounters were more common in early morning and late afternoon, on major holidays, weekends and in the dry season between August and October. Words used to describe images referred to locations, species and natural features, with people mostly expressing positive sentiments and emotions such as trust, joy and anticipation about their encounters. The results reinforce the concentrated nature of wildlife tourism – in parks, such as Kruger National Park, and adjacent private protected areas. Expanding where, when and which species are encountered would be valuable for marketing and management. The results also illustrate benefits but also limitations including who posts about what, where and when from online platforms such as Flickr.