Context. Tourism is becoming one of the largest and fastest growing industries in many countries. Increasing tourism exerts serious impacts on the habitats of wildlife in nature reserves.

Aims. To ascertain how tourism affects the habitat of the Chinese giant salamander (Andrias davidianus), especially water quality and population size.

Method. An experiment was conducted to investigate the influences of different tourism disturbance intensities on the habitat quality and population size of the Chinese giant salamander in the Hunan Zhangjiajie Chinese Giant Salamander National Nature Reserve. Habitat characteristics, water physicochemical properties and microbial abundance were analysed, and population size estimated.

Key results. The results showed that high levels of tourism disturbance (>100 000 visitors per year) had negative effects on habitat quality. These effects included increased noise and abundance of aquatic microbes, increased concentration of total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphorus (TP) and a reduction of dissolved oxygen (DO) in water. The abundance of Escherichia coli could be regarded as an indicator of tourism disturbance on Chinese giant salamander.

Conclusions. It is concluded that: (1) the habitats were much noisier with increasing numbers of tourists, which might directly reduce the population size; (2) tourism indirectly disturbs the salamander population by increasing TN and TP, and reducing DO in the water; and (3) tourism might take in pathogenic microbes to the water habitats, which could cause disease for the salamander population.

Implications. Although tourism development might reduce local poverty, such efforts must consider the deterioration of habitats for wildlife, especially for this endangered animal species. Moreover, the intensity of tourism disturbance needs be reduced (by controlling the number of tourists) to achieve the coordinated development of tourism and wild animal protection.