Whale Watching Worldwide

A very detailed study of whale watching in this region commissioned by the Whale and Dolphin Conservation
Society, IFAW and Global Ocean was released in 2008. Covering the entirety of Latin America (not including
the Caribbean), the report gave comprehensive data on the industry for the 2006 calendar year. Due to the
comprehensive nature of this recent report, we have relied on the 2006 numbers in the following section for
the Central American countries of Belize, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Panamá, as well as for
México and South America in other sections. For all Caribbean countries, new data has been collected as
part of this Whale Watching 2008 report to provides estimates for the 2008 calendar year.
In the regional summary table above, a projection based on the 2006 figures has been used to estimate the
overall size of the whale watching industry for the five Central American countries in 2008. This projection
used previous growth rates in whale watching on a country‐by‐country basis combined with tourism arrival
growth figures from the World Tourism Organisation to estimate whale watch numbers for 2008. However,
in the following individual country section, only 2006 data are presented for the Central American countries.
Acknowledgements:
Erich Hoyt and Miguel Iñíguez for their fine work compiling the Latin American whale watch report from which data for
this region is largely drawn.
References:
Hoyt, E & Iñíguez, M 2008, ‘The State of Whale Watching in Latin America’, WDCS, Chippenham, UK; IFAW, Yarmouth
Port, USA; and Global Ocean, London, 60 pp..
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