Seriously - I loved the 'small guy in a big town' success story, working as a waiter in SWR, working up the ranks to get to the position of top dog. I had a lot of respect for someone who can achieve that. But the higher he rose, the more public his profile, and that's where things started to go awry...
Genuine public comments from people commenting on media articles about Sea World's new attractions, and seeing him berate them for what is in essence, their own opinion. Most of them probably don't realise what role he has within the organisation.
The latest articles, where he is quoted saying they needed 5,000 to be profitable, and that they government should be letting larger companies have more people in the parks just shows, in my opinion, the words and actions appear to be someone who cares more about profits than their guests.
Now i'm not saying that's who he is, i'm just saying thats the appearance that his words and actions are giving. And if I may quote a forum moderator - some media training could probably help with that. If he just ignored the haters, and set about proving them wrong, instead of acting the blowhard and the bully, he could probably change many people's negative opinions and earn the respect you suggest.
As has been said (in a now invisible thread) - our parks should be leading the way in showing other businesses what steps they can take to increase the capacity limits by ensuring certain protections are put into place. Now is a time to show how much you care for your guests - not to criticise your customers and show contempt for the actions of a government that are on par or better than most governments management plans around the world.
Thank god we aren't in Italy, South Korea, China, or the United States, and we've kept the infection rates low. That, and our isolated borders mean we should be able to confidently reopen, and STAY open without having a second wave like many places around the world are starting to see. Again, to quote another - god forbid pressure on state or federal governments gets our parks exempted from the rules everyone else is following only to have a massive explosion in infections shut them down again and shatter whatever post-TRRR community confidence they hold.