The Aquarium of the Pacific finished out 2021 with record profits, ending the year with $22 million in earnings, $2 million more than 2019.
“When the pandemic hit, suddenly, there were no more yellow school buses parked outside the Aquarium,” CEO Peter Kareiva said to the Long Beach City Council on Feb. 8.
The impact of the pandemic came at the heels of the Aquarium’s best financial year on record—a historic high of $41 million in operating revenue, according to the Aquarium Chief Financial Officer Anthony Brown.
That rise was cut short when pandemic-related health orders shut down large portions of the Aquarium to the public. In 2020, the facility was only fully open for 91 days.
“We suffered tremendously,” Brown said, pointing to a $13 million loss in operating revenue.
On the rebound from the worst of the pandemic, the Aquarium has bounced back in part thanks to “pent up visitor demand and record spending levels in retail and annual memberships,” Brown said.
The Aquarium’s operating reserve account has been replenished, he said. The Aquarium was also able to repay a loan early—one the City granted in 2017 to help the Aquarium with its construction payments.
Though the City twice approved loans for the Aquarium—one for $2.2 million in 2020 and one for $5 million in early 2021—they never had to use them.
“I’m so relieved and happy to hear that you have financially been able to exceed what you were able to generate prior to the pandemic,” Councilmember Suely Saro said.
During the pandemic, the Aquarium developed online programs that reached over 200,000 students and gained a TikTok following of 2.5 million.
The Aquarium also developed a number of programs in 2020, including the African American Scholar Program, which provided ten Black students studying aquarium-related fields with $10,000 scholarships.
In the past few months, they’ve added an American Indian fellowship program and a Hispanic fellowship program.
“It’s such a blessing to have you in our city,” Councilmember Suzie Price said. “It’s great to see that this city asset is thriving and continues to bounce back and in a really impressive way after the pandemic.”
