AT A GLANCE
WHO:
Coral World Ocean Park
WHAT:
Open-water marine park
WHERE:
St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands
WEBSITE:
And when it comes to Prior, if you’re looking for her
between November and April, good luck.
She and her staff
are at their busiest in
that six-month stretch
from year to year,
thanks to a series of
1990s hurricanes that
changed the facility
from a year-round
attraction to what’s
become more of a
spring and winter hot
spot.
“We used to have
an all-year season
and summers were
pretty good,” she
said, “but the hurricanes reduced the number of
summer visitors dramatically. It’s a shame because the
sea is at its clearest and calmest during the summer
months. How late our high season extends very much
depends on when Easter falls.”
Hurricane Marilyn in 1995 dealt a particularly
powerful blow to the islands – resulting in damages
estimated as high as $2 billion. But in spite of the
devastation, it also served as a watershed event in
what’s since become a decade-plus reconstruction of
a facility originally opened in the 1970s.
The Israeli company that initially built and operated the
park decided not to continue after the storm and the
land sat fallow for 18 months before a new ownership
group, of which Prior’s husband, Neil, was the majority
shareholder, joined together to buy it and rebuild it.
Part of the transition included a new name, which
meant the tongue-twisting “Coral World Underwater
Observatory and Marine Park” moniker was jettisoned
in favor of the simpler four-word ID.
Regardless of signage, however, both Prior and
Kellar, spend a fair bit of time illustrating differences
between their place of employment and Sea World
– the U.S.-based organization with a massive theme
park in Orlando, Fla. and two more in Houston and
San Antonio, Texas.
In some cases, it’s apples and oranges. The number
of visitors is significantly less at Coral World, which
allows a far greater opportunity for personal interaction
with trainers and other animal personnel.
But it was through those sorts of comparisons –
alongside gradual declines in the numbers of park visits
being booked from cruise ships docking in St. Thomas –
that both Kellar and Prior recognized a need to change
the options being presented as Coral World’s standard
“visitor experience.”
No longer was simply seeing animals enough. Instead,
more immersive opportunities were warranted.
“We saw the handwriting on the wall,” Prior says.
“People were not signing up for basic sightseeing tours
at the park. We saw the numbers on the tours were
dwindling. We weren’t sustaining the numbers that the
business had before the hurricanes, so we knew we
had to do something.
“Interaction was the watch word of the new facilities
being built.”
