THE Cebu Ocean Park is banking on the student market as it seeks to increase traffic at the new tourist draw in the city.
Cebu Ocean Park general manager Hitesh Sampat said the marine park has continued to attract schools not only in Cebu but also in the Visayas and Mindanao for educational tours.
Currently, the park’s daily visitor traffic averages at 1,500 on weekdays and 3,000 on weekends, Sampat said.
He said schools are eyeing the facility, which opened in August this year, for marine biology education.
According to Sampat, the 1.5-hectare marine park, currently the largest in the Philippines, has an existing partnership with the Department of Education and the University of San Carlos.
“We have a good market mix. We’re getting so much interest from the student market for educational tours,” he said in a recent interview.
The tourist attraction located across the SM Seaside City at the South Road Properties is also seeing an increase in local and foreign tour groups.
Right now, Cebu Sealife Park Inc., the facility operator, is working to partner with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) in taking care of illegally captured animals saved by the latter.
He said the DENR will be entrusting illegally captured animals to the marine park’s care.
The Cebu Ocean Park currently has the largest oceanarium in the country measuring seven meters deep and housing thousands of different marine species.
Amusement tourism is potentially becoming a driver to Cebu’s visitor traffic, with the opening of other attractions such as the Anjo World Theme Park in the southern municipality of Minglanilla and Skywaterpark Cebu in the northern city of Mandaue.