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Posted By Ken Storey on Wed, Jun 9, 2021 at 10:09 AM click to enlarge Photo via Visit Orlando Manta at SeaWorld Orlando. This photo was taken prior to the pandemic. After having the interim dropped from his title last month, SeaWorld’s new CEO Marc Swanson wasted no time on layout his plans. Swanson, who has been with SeaWorld Parks and Entertainment since 2004, had two terms as the company’s interim leader, with the most recent lasting a year before the company tapped him to take over permanently. The one-two punch of the
Blackfish documentary and the Wizarding World opening at Islands of Adventure caused the Orlando-based company to go into a tailspin. Major attendance declines paired with quickly shifting
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SeaWorld Entertainment’s interim CEO for the last year, Marc Swanson, was named Wednesday to lead the company on a permanent basis as it navigates its recovery from a pandemic that devastated its theme park business.
The appointment by the board of directors came on the same day that the Orlando-based company released its first-quarter earnings report, which shows a steadily improving outlook since mid-March of last year when all 12 parks were shut down due to the widening coronavirus contagion.
While overall attendance remains down, the 4.5 percent drop compared to the first quarter of 2020 was a marked improvement from the previous two quarters when visitation plunged by double digits. Compared with its pre-pandemic results for the first three months of 2019, the attendance of 2.2 million during the same period this year was down by 34 percent, SeaWorld reported.