about Planet Whale

To see a whale or dolphin can be a life-changing experience, a holiday attraction, big business, or a conservation issue. Planet Whale embraces all of these.

Aimed at anyone who’s ever seen, or wants to see, whales and dolphins in the wild, Planet Whale is the world’s fun, inspiring online community, where commercial operators can reach the world’s whalewatchers - and be rated by them.

Providing everything you ever wanted to know, we aim to be a profitable, values-driven ethical business, and an ethical Web 2.0-focussed community that will raise the standard for global whalewatching, and inspire millions of people to connect with nature and each other.


The whale watching industry has developed rapidly over the past 20 years, expanding to its current status as an integral part of mainstream tourism with more than 13 million people taking whale watching tours in 2008 in 119 countries worldwide, generating a whopping US$2.1 billion in total expenditures (‘Whale Watching Worldwide - Tourism numbers, expenditures and expanding economic benefits. A special report from the International Fund for Animal Welfare’ www.ifaw.org ).

Despite this, whale watching remains a disjointed, largely unmanaged industry that all too often provides a very poor service to its customers, and operates in a way that is detrimental to the animals themselves (and therefore the long-term viability of the industry). There is a clear and pressing commercial need to bring the community (both whale watchers and boat operators) together under one roof in order to promote the industry and improve standards. That community, soon to be available through a significant website presence – will be called Planet Whale.

Despite the existence of at least 3200 boat operators there is currently no regularly-updated website for explicit use by the global whale watching community. Not only do boat operators need to be able to market their businesses in an arena where their clients are shopping; the whale watching community also suffers from having no single place where they can contribute to knowledge, discuss issues, and purchase relevant products and trips.