Walter Finch
ANIMAL rights activists stormed the stage at a major travel industry convention in Mallorca to denounce Europe’s last big tour operator still selling tickets to marine parks around the world.
The dramatic intervention came as TUI UK managing director Neil Swanson was speaking at a panel during the ABTA Travel Convention.
A protesters burst onto the platform holding a banner that read: “TUI: Stop supporting orca abuse! Ditch marine parks!”
She interrupted the discussion to declare: “Tui is the last UK travel provider that supports marine parks where orcas are imprisoned for their whole miserable lives in tiny tanks and forced to perform demeaning tricks for paying tourists.
“Tui must stop profiting from this animal abuse. It’s time for you to drop marine parks. You’re the last provider, the last major provider in the UK to keep profiting from animal abuse.”
Outside the venue, further PETA supporters gathered to protest against TUI’s continued promotion of SeaWorld and other marine parks where dolphins and whales are kept in captivity.
PETA Vice-President Mimi Bekhechi said: “In SeaWorld and other cruel marine parks, highly intelligent orcas are trapped for life in tanks that are the equivalent of a human living in a bathtub.
PETA calls on TUI to join the rest of the travel industry and stop supporting miserable prisons for marine mammals.”
READ MORE: EU upholds a fishing ban in Spain to protect mating dolphins: 300 boats will be affected
Only two parks in Spain still stage orca shows — Loro Parque in Tenerife and Mundo Marino in Valencia — both of which continue to face fierce criticism from animal welfare groups.
Campaigners stressed that in the wild orcas live in complex matrilineal societies, hunt cooperatively and can travel up to 240 kilometres a day.
In contrast, those in captivity are confined in concrete tanks where they can only swim in circles and are often attacked by stressed tank-mates.
TUI is indeed the last major UK travel provider still selling tickets to marine parks, despite competitors having already dropped the practice under pressure from animal welfare groups.
Just weeks earlier, Spain’s own dolphin industry came under renewed scrutiny after nine bottlenose dolphins from Selwo Marina in Benalmadena were quietly transferred to China.
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The move, authorised on September 3 under international endangered species rules, has sparked outrage among campaigners who fear the animals will continue to be used in circus-style performances on Hainan Island.
Spain remains the worst offender in Europe for keeping dolphins in captivity, with around 90 to 100 individuals still housed in marine parks from Valencia to the Canary Islands.
Although the 2023 Animal Welfare Law banned wild animals in circuses, dolphinariums were exempted, meaning shows can legally continue until current dolphins die – a loophole campaigners warn could keep the practice alive for decades.
Despite closures in Benalmadena and earlier in Madrid and Costa Dorada, performances continue at facilities including Oceanografic in Valencia, Marineland in Mallorca, Mundomar in Benidorm, Aqualand in Tenerife and Palmitos Park in Gran Canaria.
France has already outlawed breeding and phased out public shows, leaving Spain increasingly isolated in clinging to an industry activists describe as “miserable prisons for marine mammals.”
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