The Two Oceans Aquarium came home from the V&A Neighbourhood Awards on 29 October with two trophies, and the photograph it published the next morning says something about which one it values. The staff are lined up in front of the kelp forest exhibit, not in front of a step and repeat banner.
The aquarium took the Global Ambassador Award and the People’s Choice Attraction Award. The awards are run by the V&A Waterfront for the roughly 1,000 tenants across the precinct, and the aquarium says 24 awards were adjudicated this year by an independent panel of industry experts and Waterfront leaders.
The two awards do different jobs
The Global Ambassador Award sits in the Destination Advocate category and goes to tenants that raise the profile of the Waterfront and of Cape Town through reputation, reach and contribution to tourism. It is a judged award. In 2024 it went to the retailer ONEOFEACH, which gives a sense of the company an aquarium is keeping in that bracket.
The People’s Choice Attraction Award is the other kind entirely. Nobody adjudicates it. It is counted.
“Being formally recognized as finalists in this year’s V&A Waterfront Tenant Awards was a tremendous honour, and winning not one, but two awards is truly incredible,” said Alichia Nortje, the aquarium’s Guest Experience Manager. “We are incredibly proud of this achievement and would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to the entire Two Oceans Aquarium team for their dedication, passion, and hard work.”
What the reach award is actually measuring
The aquarium opened on 13 November 1995 and has had more than 15 million people through it since. That is the visitor number, and on its own it is just a turnstile count. The more interesting part of the case is what it has exported.
It founded Marine Protected Area Day, a South African initiative that is now marked in countries as far away as Iceland and Indonesia. It co-champions the False Bay Hope Spot with Mission Blue. Its documentaries on the Waterfront precinct have taken Gold and Silver at the International Tourism Film Festival Africa. And in October it hosted the 27th International Zoo Educators conference, bringing 187 delegates to Cape Town, only the second time in that conference’s 52-year history that it has been held in Africa.
Through the Two Oceans Aquarium Foundation it rehabilitates and releases endangered sea turtles and reaches roughly 100,000 learners a year through ocean education programs.
A note on sourcing
The award results here come from the aquarium’s own announcement, published on 30 October, the morning after the ceremony. We checked the Waterfront’s own awards site for an independent listing and its past-winners index had not yet been updated past 2025 when we looked, which is what you would expect the morning after an awards evening. The 2024 Global Ambassador winner above comes from that index. We will take the aquarium at its word on a result that a thousand tenants watched being announced, and we are telling you that is what we are doing.
Why a tenant award is worth a paragraph
It would be easy to file this under trade news and move on. There is a reason not to.
Aquariums in tourist precincts live with a permanent tension between being an attraction and being a conservation institution, and the two roles pull on the budget in opposite directions. An award voted by the public for being a good attraction and an award judged by a panel for ambassadorship are evidence that, at least at this site, the two have not been traded off against each other. The turtle rehabilitation program and the 100,000 schoolchildren are funded by the same gate that the People’s Choice vote is measuring.
That is the ordinary economics of a public aquarium, rarely stated out loud, and a precinct award is a reasonable moment to state it.
Source: Two Oceans Aquarium, “Two Oceans Aquarium celebrates double win at V&A Neighbourhood Awards”, 30 October 2026. Prior-year award winners from the V&A Neighbourhood Awards winner index.
Quick answers
- Which awards did the Two Oceans Aquarium win?
The Global Ambassador Award, which sits in the Destination Advocate category, and the People's Choice Attraction Award, both at the V&A Neighbourhood Awards on 29 October 2026.
- What are the V&A Neighbourhood Awards?
An awards programme run by the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town for its tenants. The precinct has roughly 1,000 of them, and the aquarium says 24 awards were adjudicated this year by an independent panel of industry experts and Waterfront leaders.
- How many people have visited the aquarium?
More than 15 million since it opened on 13 November 1995, according to the aquarium.
- What conservation work does the aquarium point to?
It founded Marine Protected Area Day, now marked in countries including Iceland and Indonesia, and co-champions the False Bay Hope Spot with Mission Blue. Through the Two Oceans Aquarium Foundation it rehabilitates and releases endangered sea turtles and reaches roughly 100,000 learners a year.
- Did the aquarium host an international conference this year?
Yes. In October 2026 it hosted the 27th International Zoo Educators conference, with 187 delegates, only the second time in that conference's 52-year history that it has been held in Africa.
- Has the result been confirmed independently?
Not at the time of writing. The result comes from the aquarium's own announcement, published the morning after the ceremony. The V&A Waterfront's own past-winners index had not been updated past 2025 when we checked.
