Whale Watching Worldwide

Oceania, Pacific Islands and Antarctica
Year Number of
whale
watchers
AAGR Number of
countries
Direct
expenditure
Indirect
expenditure
Total expenditure
1991 376,375 N/A 3 $10,051,000 $36,518,000 $46,569,000
1994 540,200 12.8% 6 $18,622,000 $49,088,00 $67,710,000
1998 976,833 15.9% 12 $35,494,000 $87,766,000 $123,260,000
2008 2,477,200 9.7% 17 $117,180,363 $210,688,889 $327,869,252
Whale watching in the Oceania, Pacific Islands and Antarctica region has grown strongly in recent years to
become a significant and widespread industry. Across the South Pacific and into the North Pacific, small
island countries and territories have emerging whale and dolphin watching industries that have the potential
to inject important economic activity in their small and often fragile economies.
Oceania, Pacific Islands and Antarctica have been well covered by research over the ten‐year period since
the Hoyt Report was released. Studies undertaken for IFAW by Economists at Large have updated figures for
many of the countries in the region in the last five years in five separate reports. As a result, the pattern of
growth in this region is well mapped.
What we have found is a continually growing industry across all corners of the region, led by significant
whale watching industries in New Zealand, Australia, Guam and more recently Antarctica.
Seventeen countries in this region have some form of whale watching activity, up from 12 countries in 1998.
The industry takes nearly 2.5 million whale watchers on trips, well above the 1998 figure of 1 million. This
155