The nomination comes from international organisation, Themed Entertainment Association (TEA). The TEA presents annually its "Thea" awards to projects whose achievement has been determined to be of "outstanding" quality in the creation of compelling places and experiences.

In being nominated for this award, the Oceanarium shares company with other worldwide destination attractions and previous winners include Disneyland and Seaworld in the USA and Madame Tussauds in London.

The world’s first ever Interactive Dive Cage experience which opened at the Oceanarium Bournemouth, in March 2007, created an underwater adventure for visitors at one of the town’s top tourist attractions.

The new virtual experience uses state of the art technology to enable visitors to come face to face with breathtaking great white sharks, dolphins, manta rays and the world’s biggest mammal the blue whale - without getting wet. Consisting of more than 170,000 frames of video and animation, twelve 50-inch plasma screens are used to create a 270-degree continuous view of the ocean. The plasma screens are able to work independently of each other enabling visitors to learn about the creatures’ habitats and anatomies by using interactive touch screens. Detailed computer graphics have been utilised; the Shark’s mouth alone contains over 150 modelled and textured teeth and the creatures’ skin textures are made up of nearly 600 million pixels.

James Eels Director at the Oceanarium says: “We are delighted to have been nominated for the Thea award. Following over £200,000 worth of investment by the Oceanarium and many months of development with Guildford based animation and software specialists Flaming Pear Interactive, we have produced a feature worthy of recognition on an international level, which has been extremely popular with our visitors this year.”

For further information about the Oceanarium please contact 01202 311993 or visit the website www.oceanarium.co.uk