Huge Wins for Animals Accompany Michelin Green Guide’s 100th Anniversary
One of the world’s most influential travel guides is turning 100, and animals are part of the celebration! Distinct from Michelin’s renowned food guide, which praises restaurants (including several delicious vegan ones), the Michelin Green Guide is designed for travelers and focuses on must-see sights, attractions, and activities at destinations worldwide. As it enters its second century, the Michelin Green Guide and its parent company have confirmed to PETA that they are making three historic changes for animals.
As Michelin Éditions explained, “We are convinced of the need to present content promoting responsible tourism, which includes animal welfare. Therefore, activities that can cause mistreatment … have been removed from our guides.”
Michelin and the Green Guide’s Three Huge Changes for Animals
1. Michelin Won’t Sell Leather Online or in Store
Cows are sensitive individuals who live in complex social groups and mourn when a loved one dies or when separated from each other. In the meat and animal skin industries, thousands of cows are often confined to the same crowded, filthy sheds and feedlots. By banning leather sales on its website and in its boutique, Michelin will spare gentle cows from a lifetime of suffering and violent deaths.
The move is kinder to the planet, too. According to the Higg Materials Sustainability Index, leather made from cow’s skin contributes more to the climate catastrophe, water pollution, water depletion, and greenhouse-gas emissions than any synthetic or plant-based vegan leather.
2. Tourist Activities Using Animals Will No Longer Be Featured in the Michelin Green Guide
Michelin previously won a PETA France award for removing captive-dolphin exhibits from its guides, and now the guide is removing all tourist activities that use animals. Cruel tourist traps, like elephant and camel rides, will no longer be featured in the Michelin Green Guide.
When free to roam in nature, camels live in herds and talk to each other with sounds and body movements. As a sign of friendship, they will sometimes blow on each other’s faces. But in the tourist industry, these animals endure lifetimes of misery. In 2019, 2023, and 2024 PETA Asia investigators went to the Great Pyramids of Giza in Egypt and saw workers whipping exhausted horses and camels forced to haul tourists in the blistering heat.
Camels carry heavy loads all day under the sweltering sun and go without appropriate shade or food. They’re often dumped like garbage or sent to slaughter when they are too old, sick, or injured to be profitable.
3. A Clear Warning About an Abusive and Declining ‘Tradition’
In a groundbreaking move, the new edition of the Green Guide Spain will also include a clear warning that bullfighting is “an abusive and declining tradition.” As Michelin noted, public opposition to bullfighting continues to grow, with 8 out of 10 Spaniards now rejecting the gruesome spectacle.
Bulls are curious, social, and gentle when humans aren’t torturing and killing them for “entertainment.” During bullfights, assailants repeatedly stab bulls with lances and banderillas before attempting to kill them by driving a sword into their lungs.
How You Can Help: Keep Animals Out of Your Vacation Plans
The Michelin Green Guide is one of the most prestigious and influential travel guides in the world, and PETA applauds these kind decisions. But animals need your help, too.
Whether it’s sensitive cows killed for their skin, curious elephants or camels forced to carry tourists on their backs, or protective bulls stabbed to death in staged fights, all animals suffer when exploited by humans. Most major U.S. companies have rejected bloodsports like bullfighting, including Airbnb, Expedia, Booking.com, and Tripadvisor. But StubHub North America still resells bullfighting tickets in other countries to U.S. customers. Please help bulls by urging StubHub to stop cashing in on cruelty and end all bullfighting ticket sales worldwide.
