Around 250 tourist camps across Thailand offer visitors a chance to interact with elephants. These highly popular sites support activities such as elephant riding and circuses. Welfare standards in these camps may differ — some may provide decent conditions for elephants, while others may be sub-par. At these camps, elephants work during the day and are chained in pens or shelters overnight — usually by one front leg to a cement block sunk into the ground on a chain that is approximately three to six meters in length. Chaining can cause joint damage, skin abrasions, and poor foot health while also limiting opportunities for roaming, forage and socialisation — three activities essential to good elephant welfare. 

Further issues include a lack of sufficient food, reproduction issues, high levels of stress and injury, and training methods that may harm elephants. These welfare issues are not just common to captive elephants in Thailand, but represent general concerns for the welfare of elephants in zoos and circuses around the world.

Tourists who visit these camps desire connections with majestic, charismatic and intelligent creatures, yet they may be unaware of the welfare issues at these sites. Over the past two decades, a gradual shift has occurred — led by elephant welfare activists and conservationists — that has encouraged some of these camps to become more ethical. This includes the replacement of rides and circuses with less invasive activities such as washing, feeding and observing elephants.