PE has lost one of its WC tourism drawcards

22 August 2007

Being originally from Port Elizabeth, this news is rather sad to me. It seems that PE has lost one of its WC tourism drawcards. Port Elizabeth’s two remaining dolphins – Domino and Dumisa – are expected to be relocated to another city in SA as part of a multi-million rand upgrade to the Bayworld Oceanarium ahead of the 2010 World Cup. As a result, they will not feature as a tourism drawcard during the World Cup or Confederations Cup. The city is hosting matches for both tournaments, including the World Cup third-place play-off. Funding for the Bayworld redevelopment has mushroomed to R500-million.

Tourism is the ideal industry to make use of corporate gifts as they use branded t-shirts; branded peaks; branded caps.

The Oceanarium in its present form was constructed over a period of 10 years, the first phase of which was the 750 000-litre main fish tank which was built in 1959.

After housing dolphins for a number of years, the pool was re-established as a fish tank in 1968 when the new dolphin lake was completed and is now home to a wide variety of large fish, sharks, rays and turtles.

Alongside it is the smaller tropical tank where a variety of the invertebrates and small fish species found along this coastline are displayed.

The large dolphin lake is undoubtedly the focal point of the Oceanarium. 60m long, 45m at its widest point and up to 4,5m deep, it contains 4,75 million litres of filtered seawater and is still one of the largest dolphin lakes in the world.

Photo: Project 2010