The Covid-19 pandemic has taken its toll on Albufeira’s Zoomarine theme park, which has compared its visitor numbers this summer to those registered when it opened in 1991 and there were “more employees at the park than visitors”.
“In the hot weeks of that distant summer nearly 30 years ago, we welcomed hundreds of visitors. Now, in 2020, it’s like we’ve returned to our old days. In the second half of June, we welcomed a daily average of 400 visitors,” the theme park said in a statement this week. This is a far cry from the thousands of visitors Zoomarine is used to welcoming daily.
“Our daily occupancy rate is way below our new maximum capacity (one-third),” it adds.
Like in its first year, there are virtually “no Brits visiting the park”.
“There are no queues and no crowds. It just takes two minutes to park, enter and start having fun,” the theme park says.
Zoomarine stresses that it has gone to great lengths to make sure it is safe for visitors, having obtained the ‘Clean&Safe’ seal and reducing its maximum capacity to one-third.
And while it has compared its current situation to its inaugural year, the theme park says it has come a long way since then.
Said Zoomarine: “Our animal family has grown from 120 to 1,600 animals. Our attractions grew and diversified. Our staff has grown from 200 to nearly 500 employees. And our theme park has grown as well.
“In 1991, Zoomarine opened with a seven-hectare area which has grown to 30. Today, Zoomarine is much larger, more diverse and even safer.
“Now, our amphitheatres only welcome 5% of the people they were meant too, while we feel like the whole world has changed for the worst and is greyer.
“But it is good to know some important things do not change. Even though Zoomarine is much emptier than we believed possible, our emotions are the same and our motivation is even stronger,” it concluded.
