Phuket to have biggest aquarium in Southeast Asia

BANGKOK (The Nation): Ripley Entertainment, operator of Ripley’s Believe It or Not Museum, plans to build and open a 2.1-billion-baht aquarium in Phuket within three years.

The firm will enter into a joint venture with Thailand-based conglomerate Minor International Plc, the franchisee of the Ripley museum in Pattaya.

The aquarium project will be Ripley’s second property in Thailand and its first aquarium outside the US.

The aquarium is planned to cover 10,000 to 12,000 square meters and would be bigger than Underwater World in Singapore, which claims to be the biggest aquarium in Southeast Asia.

Ripley Entertainment President Robert Masterson said the group intended to hold a major stake in the new project.

Phuket’s tourism had recovered from the great damage inflicted by the 2004 tsunami, he said.

Mr Masterson declined to reveal the location and amenities of the project, saying it was too early to go into details.

He did not think political uncertainty would affect investor confidence and believed the Kingdom was drawing more international tourists than ever before.

“The tourist market will be a major target,” he said.