Visitors swim with dolphins at a Dolphin Discovery park.A Mexican firm that has become one of the world’s specialists on swimming with dolphins has announced the construction of a new park in Cancún. It will be Dolphin Discovery’s largest in the country.
Company CEO Eduardo Albor Villanueva said the US $10-million project will consolidate the firm as the world’s largest dolphin swimming experience company, surpassing United States-based Sea World.
He said the investment will make the Caribbean coast of Mexico the company’s principal source of visitors, welcoming one-quarter of the two million people who visit the company’s parks every year.
The company expects to continue to see 6% annual growth in visitor numbers in Mexico and elsewhere.
Dolphin Discovery began in Quintana Roo in 1994, and since then has grown into a multinational corporation with 23 dolphin parks and nine waterparks in Mexico, the Caribbean, the United States and Europe.
The company announced that it plans to invest US $20 million in new projects in 2020, half of which will go to the new Cancún park, which will be located five kilometers from the airport, near the Hotel Moon Palace, and 20 kilometers from downtown Cancún.
“The project hopes to offer our visitors and the community in general . . . the opportunity to get to know sea mammal species like dolphins, while at the same time promote protection of the environment and marine mammals through interactive programs . . .” reads the project’s environmental impact statement.
The new dolphin park is the first of its kind in two years after a 2017 Green Party initiative placed a temporary moratorium on the construction of establishments that keep marine mammals in captivity.
Source: El Economista (sp)
