Whale Watching Worldwide

Panama
Year Number of
whale
watchers
AAGR Number of
operators
Direct
expenditure
Indirect
expenditure
Total
expenditure
1991 None N/A None None None None
1994 None N/A None None None None
1998 Minimal N/A Minimal Minimal Minimal Minimal
2006 17,711 70.3% 81 $448,025 $2,692,350 $3,140,375
Capital City: Panama City
Whale Watch Locations:
01: Archipelago Bocas del Toro
02: Isla Iguana
Panama’s cetacean watching industry was established in the late
1990s and has grown quickly, along with both general tourism and a
focus on national parks and ecotourism. Most cetacean watching
activity occurs on the Archipelago Bocas del Toro off the Caribbean
coast, where some 16,000 visitors a year watch bottlenose dolphins.
The area has over 200 boats that offer snorkelling, scenic cruises
and dolphin watching.
Several locations on the Pacific coast offer boat‐based whale and dolphin watching trips. Trips encounter
bottlenose, pantropical spotted and spinner dolphins, along with humpback, sperm, Cuvier's beaked and
short‐finned pilot whales and occasionally orcas. The main locations are Isla Iguana, where 15 fishermen
offer whale watch tours, and Isla Coiba, a former prison island that now attracts tourists on tours that
include dolphin watching in the surrounding national park.
Main species: Large cetaceans:
humpback whale, sperm whale
Small cetaceans:
Atlantic spotted dolphin, bottlenose dolphin,
Cuvier's beaked whale, pantropical spotted
dolphin, short‐finned pilot whale, spinner
dolphin
Tourists:
International Mainly international
Domestic
Types of tours: Boat‐based, short trips
Average adult ticket price: From $15 to $150 depending on location and
nature of the tour
Estimated employment
81
numbers:
Main whale watch season: December to April (main tourist season)
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..
260