Whale Watching Worldwide

French Polynesia
Year Number of
whale
watchers
AAGR Number of
operators
Direct
expenditure
Indirect
expenditure
Total
expenditure
1991 None N/A None None None None
1994 Minimal N/A ~1 Minimal Minimal Minimal
1998 Minimal N/A ~1 Minimal Minimal Minimal
2005 6,000 57.5% 12 $564,000 $750,000 $1,314,000
2008 6,442 38.4% 50 12 $605,590 $805,306 $1,410,896
Capital City: Papeete
Whale Watch Locations:
01: Tahiti
02: Moorea
French Polynesia has a thriving dedicated whale watch industry that
has seen a period of strong growth since 1998 of approximately
58% per year up to 2005. This is on the back of a large and mature
tourism industry, with approximately 210,000 visitors in 2004 51 .
The country has an annual migration of humpback whales that are
said to breed in local waters, residing there between the months of
July to November. Furthermore, resident spinner and bottlenose dolphins, as well as melon‐headed whales,
provide the basis for a small dolphin watching industry all year round. Reliable sightings of cetaceans,
combined with a mature tourism industry in the country, have lead to this successful growth in recent years.
Besides this whale watching industry, there is a captive swim‐with‐dolphins operation that operates within a
major resort on Moorea attracting several thousand tourists in 2005 52 . Dolphin watchers participating in
this operation were not included in this report as this research aims to estimate whale watching of wild
cetacean species in their natural environment.
50 AAGR from 1998 to 2008
51 Op.cit., Hopkins, R (2006)
52 Dolphin Encounter, pers.comm. (May 2006)
Main species: Large cetaceans:
humpback whale
Small cetaceans:
spinner dolphin, bottlenose dolphin
Tourists:
International 90%
Domestic 10%
Types of tours: Boat‐based, short and multiple day trips,
dedicated
Average adult ticket price: N/A
Estimated employment
24
numbers:
Main whale watch season: July to November for whales, year‐round for
dolphins
181