Whale Watching Worldwide

South America
Year: Number of
whale
watchers
AAGR Number of
countries
Direct
expenditure
Indirect
expenditure
Total
expenditure
1991 22,418 N/A 5 $15,447,000 $11,245,000 $29,692,000
1994 231,530 117.8% 8 $19,117,000 $43,464,000 $62,581,000
1998 266,712 3.6% 8 $25,667,000 $69,141,000 $94,808,000
2006 582,547 10.3% 11 71 $63,614,528 $102,367,103 $165,981,631
2008
Projection
696,900 10% 72 11 $84,210,754 $127,576,320 $211,787,074
Nearly all countries on the continent are involved in whale watching. South America has numerous resident
and migratory cetaceans in coastal and inland waters. The largest industries are in Argentina and Brazil, both
with well over 200,000 whale watchers each in 2008. At the other end of the scale are Bolivia, Peru and the
Falkland Islands, with just a few hundred whale watchers.
It is clear from recent research that cetacean watching across the continent is a major generator of
economic activity; the industry generated a total expenditure of over $200 million and took nearly 700,000
people whale watching in 2008.
A detailed study of whale watching in Latin America based on 2006 data was released in 2008. The report
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Hoyt and Iñíguez did not include Falkland Islands in their 2006 study, however it is assumed to have had minimal
whale watchers in 2006.
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AAGR for ten years 1998 to 2008 is 10%, for 2006‐2008 is 9.2%
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