Recreational hunting tourism: a leisure industry at the animals' expense

29,328 recreational hunters were active in Switzerland in 2025 (Federal Hunting Statistics). Some of them travel halfway around the world to hunt. Hunting-trip catalogues offer ibex in Valais, red deer in Eastern Europe and antelope in South Africa as bookable experience packages. Hunting fairs such as «JAGD & HUND» in Dortmund, Europe's largest hunting fair, bring this market together every year in a single exhibition centre, where arms dealers, tour operators and trophy taxidermists exhibit side by side.

What the recreational hunting community markets as "connection to nature", "conservation" and "wildlife population regulation" turns out, on closer inspection, to be a global leisure industry that sorts animals by trophy value and willingness to pay, uses licence-hunting cantons as exclusive hunting grounds for foreign guests, aestheticises violence against wild animals as a lifestyle product at hunting fairs, and instrumentalises the argument of "species protection" to defend a practice that is rejected by a broad majority of the population.

The organisation Tier im Recht describes recreational hunting tourism as «dubious and highly problematic» and documents that Swiss nationals also regularly take part in trophy hunts for exotic animal species and import their trophies into Switzerland. ProTier criticises the fact that individual Swiss cantons issue kill licences for sought-after species such as the ibex to wealthy foreign hunting guests, sometimes with helicopter transport into the hunting ground, sometimes for five-figure Swiss franc sums. A broad majority of the Swiss population rejects trophy hunting and supports a ban on the import of hunting trophies. This dossier documents the facts, identifies the economic mechanisms and ethical contradictions, and shows why recreational hunting tourism is not a niche topic but a magnifying glass on what recreational hunting is at its core.

What awaits you here

From experience to package: how recreational hunting tourism works. How hunting travel operators market wild animals as bookable products, what the catalogues say and what this reveals about recreational hunting's self-image.
Licence hunting cantons and ibex trophies. How hunting tourism works in Switzerland, which cantons attract foreign hunting guests, which ones deter them, and why the difference is politically decisive.
Trophy hunting abroad: price lists, safaris, trophy imports. What is written in the catalogues of safari outfitters, what amounts are paid for individual animals and what Swiss nationals bring home with hunting trophies.
JAGD & HUND and other trade fairs: how an industry celebrates itself. How hunting fairs normalise hunting trips, who exhibits, what is advertised and why hunting fairs shape the public image of recreational hunting.
Economics of hunting tourism: who profits, who pays the price? Why the value-creation argument does not hold up, where the money flows and what alternatives exist.
Animal ethics: when the value of a life depends on its trophy. What it means to sort animals by trophy value, why this is incompatible with modern animal welfare thinking, and what surveys say about public attitudes.
«Protection through use»: the hunting lobby's favourite argument and its weaknesses. Why the hunting lobby relies on species-conservation rhetoric, what is wrong with the logic and what alternatives exist.
What needs to change: Concrete political demands: an import ban on trophies, restrictions on licence hunting permits for foreigners, and regulation of hunting fairs.
Talking points: Answers to the most common justifications used by the recreational hunting lobby.
Quick links: All relevant articles, studies and dossiers at a glance.

From experience to package: how recreational hunting tourism works

Hunting-trip operators market their products today the way holiday brochures sell beach breaks: with booking forms, reviews, picture galleries and package prices. The websites of providers such as Jagdreisen Fabrig or international safari outfitters list offers in more than 20 countries on five continents. Included are access to the hunting ground, accommodation, a local hunting guide, kill rights for specific species and trophy preparation. For those who want it, export of the trophy to the home country can be booked on top.

The language of the catalogues is revealing. It speaks of «dream hunts», «chances of success», «trophy quality» and «unforgettable experiences». Wild animals appear in it not as individuals with a life interest of their own, but as units of output that cost more or less depending on species, size and rarity. A wild boar costs less than a kudu, a kudu less than a buffalo, and a buffalo with particularly impressive horns more than an average one. The trophy is the product; the animal is the raw material.

This logic is not confined to exotic countries. It also applies to hunting offers in the German-speaking world and in Switzerland: the hunting ground is the “experience”, the kill fee is the price, and the chamois buck, red deer or ibex that has been shot is what the paying guest takes home, either as a trophy or as a photo. Recreational hunting tourism is thus not an exception within hunting culture but its most consistent distillation: what can still be disguised as “tradition” and “conservation” in the home hunting ground appears on the international booking platform in its naked economic logic.

More on this: Hunting in Switzerland: figures, systems and myths and Hunting myths: 12 claims you should scrutinise critically

Licence hunting cantons and ibex trophies: hunting tourism in Switzerland

In Switzerland, hunting tourism is not a marginal phenomenon but a politically regulated practice handled very differently from canton to canton. At its centre are the licence hunting cantons (that is, the 16 cantons in which hunting grounds are not leased out but hunting licences are issued by the authorities) and especially coveted species such as ibex, chamois and black grouse. Some cantons have recognised that foreign hunting guests are willing to pay considerable sums for these trophies.

ProTier documents that the canton of Valais has in the past issued kill licences for ibex to foreign hunting guests, in some cases combined with helicopter transport into the high mountains, for sums in the five-figure franc range. No objective need for regulation has been demonstrated for these kills; the animals do not die because their population is problematically large, but because someone is willing to pay for it. Since December 2024, foreign hunting guests have once again been permitted to shoot ibex in Valais (SRF); according to Blick, a single kill costs around CHF 25,000. The decision remained politically contentious and triggered discussions about the proportionality of such licence awards. That the trophy logic also affects the animals themselves is shown by a study by the WSL and the University of Cambridge (Büntgen et al. 2018, Journal of Animal Ecology): the analysis of horn growth in 8,355 ibex shot in Grisons between 1978 and 2013 demonstrates that recreational hunters deliberately kill animals with above-average horn length (WSL).

Grisons shows that things can be done differently. The canton deliberately set the licence fees for foreigners so high that taking part becomes economically unattractive: according to a 2019 SRF report, a high hunt licence for foreigners cost 14’629 francs, roughly twenty times the price for locals (760 francs at the time, 805 francs in 2026 according to the schedule of the Office for Hunting and Fisheries) and five times the price for hunters from other cantons (around 2’813 francs). Even the managing director of JagdSchweiz, David Clavadetscher, told SRF that hunting tourism is not needed, as there are enough local recreational hunters in Grisons. This example shows that hunting tourism can be controlled politically. The question is whether the political will exists to restrict it, or whether cantons will continue to offer wild animals as exclusive trophy goods for wealthy guests.

More on this: Trophy hunting: when killing becomes a status symbol and template texts for hunting-critical motions in cantonal parliaments

Trophy Hunting Abroad: Price Lists, Safaris and Trophy Imports

Abroad, the logic of recreational hunting tourism emerges particularly clearly. Safari outfitters in South Africa and Namibia publish detailed price lists in which animal species are assigned fixed amounts in euros. Antelopes, wild boars, jackals, big game: everything has its tariff. On top of this come surcharges depending on trophy class and body size, separate costs for taxidermy, and fees for exporting the trophy to the buyer's home country. For buffalo, sable antelopes or other prestigious species, package prices in the five-figure euro range are demanded for just a few days of hunting.

The Foundation for the Animal in Law (TIR) documents in a report on trophy hunting that Swiss citizens also regularly take part in this form of hunting tourism and bring trophies of exotic animals into Switzerland. The TIR describes this tourism as "questionable and highly problematic" and notes that a clear majority of the Swiss population rejects the killing of wild animals solely for the purpose of trophy acquisition and supports an import ban on hunting trophies. What the financially well-off minority regards as an experiential journey and a legitimate leisure activity thus contradicts a social consensus that has become clearer in Switzerland.

Selection is particularly problematic: it is not sick, weak or biologically expendable animals that are preferentially killed, but the strongest, largest and most impressive specimens, because they yield the coveted trophies. Studies show that this selection by trophy value can change the genetic structure of wildlife populations in the long term (Coltman et al. 2003, Nature, on bighorn sheep), because dominant individuals, who normally shape reproduction, are deliberately removed. That is not species protection. It is the opposite.

More on this: Why animal welfare law ends at the forest edge and Lead ammunition and environmental toxins from recreational hunting

JAGD & HUND and other trade fairs: how an industry celebrates itself

The «JAGD & HUND» fair in Dortmund is considered Europe's largest hunting trade fair. Every year, the exhibition halls transform into what the organisers themselves describe as the «largest hunting ground in Europe»: a multi-day event where weapons, optics, clothing, off-road vehicles and dogs are showcased alongside international hunting travel providers. The hunting community gathers here, books safaris, compares weapon catalogues and exchanges views on trophies. Meanwhile, the host city of Dortmund praises the fair as an economic boost that fills hotels, invigorates the hospitality industry and brings thousands of visitors into the city.

What is missing from this self-description is the question of what is actually being advertised at such fairs. International providers present hunting trips targeting species that are, in some cases, severely endangered in their countries of origin, or whose hunting is highly contentious both ethically and ecologically. Trophy hunting of big game in Africa, high-mountain hunts in Central Asia, bear-hunting trips in Eastern Europe: all of this finds its market between the beer stand and the weapons display case. The ethical and animal welfare questions raised by these practices are not addressed in the official fair communiqué. What counts is turnover.

Hunting fairs thus serve a dual function: they are a marketplace for a global hunting industry, and they are a normalisation machine. A layperson visiting such a fair experiences hunting as a self-evident leisure culture with its own fashion world, its own stars and its own lifestyle offerings. The animals being hunted are not present in this picture, except as trophies, fur trim and mounted specimens. The fair shows hunting the way the hunting lobby wants it to be seen: big, attractive, modern. What it does not show is the part that appears on price lists: the dead animal as a bookable unit of service.

More on this: Europe's largest hunting fair: Nature sold off, Trophy photos: double standards, dignity and the blind spot of recreational hunting and Psychology of hunting: Why people kill animals

The economics of hunting tourism: who profits, who pays the price

The hunting lobby regularly defends hunting tourism with economic arguments: hunting trips, it claims, bring added value to rural regions, create jobs and generate tax revenue for countries that depend on this income. The argument sounds pragmatic, but in key respects it is selective and incomplete.

First, substantial portions of the revenue do not flow into the regions where the hunting takes place, but to hunting-trip operators in the tourists' countries of origin, to outfitting companies and to lodge operators. Local communities in hunting areas, particularly in Africa, often benefit only to a limited extent from hunting tourism revenue, while bearing the ecological and social consequences of intensive hunting of their wildlife populations. Second, for virtually every region that offers hunting tourism today, equivalent or economically more attractive alternatives exist: wildlife watching, nature photography, ecotourism and educational programmes can generate the same revenue without a single animal having to be killed. The claim that hunting tourism is economically indispensable cannot be sustained empirically.

Third, and most importantly: the logic of 'protection through use' (which we examine in more detail in the next section) ties the economic value of an animal to the possibility of killing it. In this calculation, wild animals are only 'valuable' for as long as they can be marketed as trophy merchandise. Species that are too rare, too small or too unattractive for the trophy market do not appear at all in the economic justification of hunting tourism. This is not conservation logic; it is market logic borrowing the rhetoric of conservation.

More on this: Hunting and Animal Welfare: What the Practice Does to Wild Animals and Alternatives to recreational hunting

Animal ethics: when the value of a life depends on its trophy

A large ibex with mighty horns, a trophy red deer with heavy antlers, a kudu with widely sweeping spiral horns: the more impressive, the more expensive the package. Recreational hunting tourism ties an animal's life to its trophy value, not to its intrinsic worth as a sentient being, but to its usefulness as a decorative object. What sounds like an economic matter of course is, from the standpoint of animal ethics, a fundamental shift in values: protection exists only for animals that can be killed and marketed. Animals that 'bring in nothing' are, in this logic, worth less.

The Foundation for Animals in Law states that a clear majority of the population is opposed to trophy hunting. The idea of killing protected, rare or particularly charismatic animals solely because someone covets their horns or fur as a trophy contradicts a growing standard of compassion and animal welfare that has become established in society over recent decades. This is especially evident in high-profile cases: when the lion Cecil was killed as a trophy in Zimbabwe in 2015 by an American dentist, it triggered outrage worldwide. The reaction showed that a growing proportion of the population no longer regards animals as objects whose lives can be bought.

What applies to lions and elephants applies equally to ibex in Valais, to chamois bucks in the Alps and to red deer in Eastern European hunting grounds. The mechanism is the same: an animal's life is given a price in a catalogue. The only difference lies in geographical and media visibility. Recreational hunting tourism normalises this logic by making it bookable, measurable and marketable, and by giving it a festive setting at hunting fairs.

More on this: Why animal welfare law ends at the forest edge and Wolf trophy hunting: how EU bans are turned into a farce through loopholes

«Protection through use»: the most popular argument and its weaknesses

«Protection through use» is the most commonly used justification for trophy hunting and hunting tourism. Put simply, the argument runs: if wild animals generate money through hunting trips, local communities and government bodies have an economic incentive to protect wild animals and their habitats. Animals are only safe if their survival pays off. This logic is not entirely wrong, but it is selective, ethically problematic, and empirically less sound than its proponents claim.

The fundamental problem lies in the mechanism itself: in this logic, protection is not unconditional but tied to the possibility of killing. An animal that nobody covets as a trophy is, in this calculation, less protected. A species that loses its trophy value (because it becomes too rare, because the market shifts, because trophy prices fall) thereby also loses its 'protective value'. This is not conservation logic but the application of market mechanisms to ecological systems, which in the long term produces unstable and ethically untenable results. Moreover, the effect depends crucially on who receives the money and whether it actually flows into protection measures, a question that has not been satisfactorily answered in many hunting tourism regions.

The alternative exists and it works: Botswana banned trophy hunting in 2014 and bet on photographic tourism and wildlife watching; since then the country has ranked among Africa's most important safari destinations and is home to the continent's largest elephant population. In 2019 the government lifted the ban under pressure from the hunting lobby and from parts of the rural population, a decision that drew sharp international criticism. This shows that “protection through use” is not a law of nature but a political decision, and one that can be reversed in either direction. The choice between “trophy hunting or no protection” is a false dichotomy that the hunting lobby sustains out of self-interest.

More on this: Trophy hunting unmasked: 14 lobby myths fact-checked and Hunting myths: 12 claims you should scrutinise critically

Public perception: what hunting tourism reveals about hunting

Pictures of trophy hunters posing next to dead lions, ibex or antelope circulate on social media and regularly provoke public outrage. For the hunting lobby, such images are a problem: they undermine every narrative of “humility”, “respect” and “connection with nature” that hunting associations use to describe their activity. Anyone who smiles for the camera beside a dead lion makes visible what recreational hunting tourism means in practice, and what it does not mean: stewardship, conservation, responsibility.

Even within the hunting scene, hunting tourism is not uncontroversial. When Grisons declared that it did not seek hunting tourism and raised the fees for foreign hunting guests to a deterrent level, that was also an implicit signal: hunting tourism damages the image of hunting. The reasoning was revealing: foreign hunting guests were not needed because there were enough local recreational hunters. What remains unanswered is this: if hunting tourism damages the image of hunting, one has to ask whether this is a problem of image or a problem of the thing itself. Anyone who has wild animals killed for payment is providing a service. Whether this service is socially acceptable cannot be answered by the hunting lobby alone.

Surveys and political debates in several European countries show that the public is increasingly answering this question critically. In Switzerland, a majority supports an import ban on hunting trophies; the National Council (2017) and the Council of States (2022) nevertheless rejected corresponding motions (Switzerland rejects import ban on hunting trophies). In the EU, stricter import restrictions on trophies from protected species have been under discussion for years. Anyone who dismisses recreational hunting tourism as socially irrelevant ignores the fact that it shapes public debate and has democratic majorities against it.

More on this: Recreational hunting as an event and Hunter lobby in Switzerland: how influence works

What needs to change

Import ban on hunting trophies in Switzerland: Switzerland is a significant import market for hunting trophies. A statutory import ban, in line with initiatives in the EU, would send a clear signal that Switzerland is no longer a buyer of trophies from problematic hunting practices. Animal welfare organisations and a broad majority of the population support this step.
Federal restriction of hunting licences for foreign guests: Cantons that grant kill licences for sought-after species to foreign hunting guests will in future only be permitted to do so in narrowly defined, ecologically justified exceptional cases. Licence hunting permits for ibex, chamois and black grouse must not serve as a source of revenue.
Transparency obligation regarding hunting tourism in Switzerland: Cantons that grant hunting licences to foreign guests will be required to publicly disclose the number, type and proceeds of these licences. Template motion: Transparent hunting statistics
Regulation of hunting fairs: Hunting fairs that, on Swiss soil or with Swiss participation, advertise hunting trips targeting protected or endangered species should be subject to stricter requirements. What may not be traded directly must not be marketed indirectly through hunting-trip packages either. Template motion: Curbing recreational hunting tourism: advertising ban for trophy hunting trips
Promotion of non-lethal nature tourism alternatives: Cantons and the Confederation provide funding for wildlife-observation infrastructure, nature photography offerings and ecological tourism. Anyone wishing to preserve wild animals as an economic asset should invest in non-lethal alternatives. Template motion: Wildlife observation as an alternative to recreational hunting
International cooperation for stricter CITES rules: As a CITES member, Switzerland actively advocates for stricter regulations on trophy trade and trophy hunting of endangered species, acting as a driving force rather than a silent observer.

Talking points

«Hunting tourism generates economic value and thereby protects wild animals.» The argument confuses cause and effect: if animals are only protected for as long as they can be killed and marketed, that is not nature conservation but a market mechanism with an expiry date. As soon as the trophy market collapses, the incentive for protection disappears. Between 2014 and 2019, Botswana showed that non-lethal nature tourism creates stable and ethically defensible incentives for protection. Moreover, substantial portions of the revenue from hunting tourism flow not to local communities or conservation programmes, but to organisers and outfitters in the hunting guests' countries of origin.

«Trophy hunting is a legal leisure activity; it is the personal decision of recreational hunters.» Individual freedom ends where it is exercised at the expense of others – in this case at the expense of sentient animals and of a societal consensus that largely rejects trophy hunting. The majority of the Swiss population supports an import ban on hunting trophies. A leisure pursuit carried out against such a clear majority will requires particularly strong justification, and trophy hunting does not provide it.

«Only the strongest animals are hunted, which improves the genetics of the population.» The opposite has been demonstrated. The selective removal of the largest, strongest and most impressive individuals deprives populations of precisely those animals that normally dominate reproduction. Studies show that this form of selection can reduce genetic traits such as antler and horn size in the long term (Coltman et al. 2003), and that Swiss recreational hunters, too, deliberately shoot the ibex with the longest horns (Büntgen et al. 2018). Here the hunting lobby defends a practice with an argument that contradicts science.

«Hunting fairs are normal events, just like travel fairs.» The difference lies in the product: a travel fair sells holiday experiences. A hunting fair sells, among other things, kill rights for animal species whose hunting is ecologically controversial or internationally regulated. Anyone who markets hunting trips for lions, buffalo or ibex as a normal lifestyle product has some explaining to do to a society that counts animal welfare among its values.

“Switzerland has nothing to do with it; this is a problem for other countries.” Switzerland is a country of origin for hunting tourists, an import country for hunting trophies and a base for hunting events and associations that promote and facilitate international hunting tourism. Switzerland is part of the system and, as a wealthy democracy, has a duty to acknowledge its shared responsibility and take appropriate measures.

«Hunting tourism in Swiss cantons is not tourism, these are local circumstances.» An ibex that is allocated to a foreign hunting guest for a five-figure sum does not die in a more “native” way than one shot on an international safari. Geographical proximity changes nothing about the economic logic: a wild animal is being marketed commercially as a trophy commodity, regardless of where the paying guest comes from.

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Recreational hunting tourism shows recreational hunting in its most consistent and honest form: as a global leisure industry in which animals are turned into bookable experiences, price-list items and decorative trophies. Those who market wild animals in this way can hardly speak at the same time of “stewardship”, “a bond with nature” and “responsibility” towards the “creature”. The narrative and the practice do not match, and hunting tourism makes this more visible than any other form of recreational hunting.

A modern wildlife policy that takes animal welfare and species protection seriously must name these contradictions and correct them politically. That means: a ban on imports of hunting trophies, a restriction under federal law on the issuing of hunting licences to foreign guests, more transparency about hunting tourism in Switzerland and consistent promotion of non-lethal nature experiences. The question is not whether regions may profit economically from wild animals, but how: with cameras, binoculars and respect for the living animal, or with bullets, price lists and trophy walls. This dossier is updated continuously as new data, political developments or legal decisions require.

More on the topic of recreational hunting: in our hunting dossier we bring together fact checks, analyses and background reports.