The aquarium has, ever since it opened, a tourist attraction in the most basic sense. It’s fundamental purpose was to entertain guests. When going to the aquarium you will see a pattern or a trend to the population demographics. The biggest percentage of the population that visit the aquarium is a family with child, consisting of over half of the percentage of the population. This has happened because the building was designed as a tourist attraction specifically towards children. The design of the interior itself boosts the appeal to children by creating a feeling of immersion. The shapes and colors of the atrium create the effect of being in a gigantic reef in what seems like some fantasy land. It allows for a child to run wild with imagination. Through this they become actively engaged of what goes on in the aquarium wanting to see everything. This could prove to help the cause of conservationism in theory. In reality this isn’t the case.
Because the target audience is primarily children, They make the exhibits feel like a game more then an educational situation. They put kiosks in major parts of the exhibits like a program called RevisiTour. This program provides “a context of photos and by motivating people to be active creators of content to share their experiences with others.”(Kang, Stasko, Luther, Ravi, & Xu, 2008) It is a version of social media used inside the aquarium essentially that families can use to take pictures at various kiosks around the building and they are shown in a central location in the atrium on a screen. They show families around major exhibits like the barrier reef exhibit where you can take a picture in front with RevisiTour. This adds weight to the tourist attraction side of the entire system. To help with the marine ecosystem, it would be beneficial to follow the role of the aquarium residing in Epcot in Disney World. They use kiosks Showing some of the special fish in the tank to help you point them out and gives you interesting and fun facts about the fish and how it is doing in the current environment. Doing that would not only boost the tourist attraction vision but it could start a message of what can be done to protect the marine ecosystem by letting us know what is in our oceans.