Elephant tourism involving riding, performance, and close contact depends on a training process called phajaan that causes severe psychological and physical trauma.
Elephants performing tricks, giving rides, or submitting to close contact with tourists have undergone a traumatic training process that causes lasting psychological damage. Even in facilities presenting themselves as sanctuaries, if visitors ride or have close contact with elephants, those animals have been subjected to phajaan. Post-phajaan, elephants are managed through threatened or actual pain throughout their working lives. Welfare-genuine elephant facilities allow observation only, with elephants making choices about proximity to humans and other elephants.