Aquaworld Website Honoured by State Television

(Press Release)


The Aquaworld aquarium website was recently honoured by the Greek national television service - ERT. It currently takes pride of place in their listing of "No 1" sites and also heads their table for sites concerned with marine ecology.

Accompanying the link, ERT describes Aquaworld as "...a gem, not only for our country but also for the whole of the Mediterranean. The fabulous work and the enthusiasm of the people who decided to create this aquarium is admirable and because of them those who visit Crete have the opportunity to admire the treasures of the Mediterranean up close. Fish, reptiles and various other marine species create an unbelievable magical mosaic ... "

The Aquaworld site was written last winter by John McLaren, founder of Aquaworld, and drew on the Internet Studies he had recently undertaken with Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia. Mr McLaren conducted a poll of Aquaworld visitors and carried out extensive video testing of other aquarium sites before deciding on the very simple layout of the Aquaworld site. "People want to know just a couple of basic things about an aquarium - where it is, when it's open, and how much it costs to get in - so these key points are all included on the home page for each language," he says, "but the Aquaworld site allows visitors to go far further, if they wish, and learn much more about Aquaworld and the creatures on display."

Many of the images on the site were created by Jelger and Maaike of Digital Nature - others came from Aquaworld's own archives.

The site was subsequently translated into Greek by retired police officer Nikos Metaxiotis, into Dutch by Petra of Pet Planet - Hersonissos' first pet shop - and into Swedish by Nicole, a Swedish artist living here on Crete and a helper at the Cretan Animal Welfare Group. A German translation is being undertaken by Master of Science candidate Samuel Tanner (studies permitting) at the University of Zurich.

Mr McLaren describes this totally unexpected accolade to his site as "a breath of fresh air following on from our eventual recognition after ten years work by the Greek Tourist Organisation (EOT) last year."