It took me quite some time, but by scavenging the internet I managed to compile a list of the average annual attendance at 15 zoos, aquariums and wildlife parks all around Australia. Many of the numbers are fairly accurate, give or take, as they were taken from the latest annual report. However, some of the numbers were found in newspaper articles and other links and I'm hoping that they are within a few thousand of the exact total. It will be interesting to see what happens to the relatively low figures for both Adelaide and Monarto, as the giant panda circus arrives soon and I expect that those visitor numbers will at the very least DOUBLE in the first year. If anyone else has any other attendance figures for places with 100,000 visitors or more than feel free to let me know! For instance, Australia Zoo is one that I couldn't find any attendance figures for. AUSTRALIAN ZOOS & AQUARIUMS Annual Attendance: Sea World (Gold Coast Australia) – 1.3 million Taronga Zoo – 1.2 million Sydney Aquarium – 1.2 million Melbourne Zoo – 1 million Melbourne Aquarium – 850,000 (including the boost from the penguins) Perth Zoo – 650,000 Sydney Wildlife World – 600,000 Adelaide Zoo – 400,000 AQWA (Aquarium of Western Australia) – 400,000 Mooloolaba Underwater World – 400,000 Werribee Open Range Zoo – 310,000 Healesville Sanctuary – 300,000 Taronga Western Plains Zoo – 200,000 Monarto Zoo – 120,000 Alice Springs Desert Park – 100,000
They're some very interesting figures...I'm especially surprised with Werribee Zoo and Healesville Sanctuary because they are higher then I expected. Sydney Wildlife World suprised me as well but now that I think about it there are so many tourists walkiing around Darling Harbour everyday that I'm amazed it's not higher.
I thought Sydney Wildlife World may have seen bigger numbers but that's still $12,000,000 just in admissions. I have started wondering of late if admissions is just for general public or if it includes school groups and groups that come in after hours.
what have we learnt here? people love aquariums. dubbo would be the most popular open range zoo in australia if it wasn't in dubbo. werribee would probably be the most popular zoo in australia if it had the collection and reputation dubbo had. darling harbour is just way more convenient to japanese tourists that heallesville. the smaller the city the higher percentage of visitors compared with population....
Many of the biggest and best aquariums are located on waterfront harbours in major cities, and thus aquariums are visited FAR more often by tourists than traditional zoos. Aquariums in Vancouver, Chicago, New York, Boston, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Miami, Melbourne, Sydney, and countless other cities are within minutes of the downtown core of the city...while zoos are often outside the city and are sometimes in an hour away from the busy tourist hub. That's why aquariums are so popular, easy to see in a couple of hours, and are almost always more expensive than zoos. Sydney Aquarium and Sydney Wildlife World are often viewed as a combo ticket, as they are directly right next to each other and owned by the same company. Those Darling Harbour attractions have over 1.8 million visitors a year, which makes them Australia's # 1 animal attraction if you count them as one entity. Location, location, location. As I pointed out before, I'll be extremely interested to see what happens to the Adelaide Zoo numbers once the giant panda exhibit opens, and with Monarto's many improvements to its viewing boardwalks, chimpanzee habitat, and panda crowd from Adelaide I'm sure that the world's largest open-range zoo will also prosper.
Something else about Sydney Aquarium - it's open until 10pm. If you're in Sydney on business, then in the evening you can wander down to the aquarium if you're looking for something to do. Hix
Thanks for sharing Snowleopard. I'm quite surprised that Taronga and Melbourne are somewhat close in figures..... taking in consideration that Taronga is far larger than Melbourne.
You mean geographically? Taronga is around 21 hectares in size, while Melbourne is actually 22 hectares. Just FYI - Monarto Zoo is now 1450 hectares (world's biggest open range zoo) with the recent purchase of the neighbouring "Schubert's Farm". Apparently African elephants at Monarto Zoo is back on the agenda with the new land they have available, but the cost is still prohibitive at this stage.
WOW!! really??? I've only gone to Taronga once in 2006. And I still have the map, just seems a whole lot bigger.
... and also Mogo, Crocodylas and NZ&A. Unfortunately I can imagine that finding the figures from private collections would be near impossible.
It says on there website they want them, Monarto zoo seem focused on African animals and with that much land it seems fitting for them
Apologies for bumping an old thread, but this got me thinking. It bodes well for both Mogo and Halls Gap: these are probably, along with TWPZ, the most isolated zoos in Australia in terms of population within their region. Both have about the same amount of people living within 100km as Dubbo does. So... Is 35-40,000 people as a local market the lower limit of sustainability for zoos in Australia?
It is important to realise that Dubbo 1. is a political creation. It was originally planned for the western suburbs of Sydney, and got moved to Dubbo as part of a political deal. 2. has had and will continue to have a great deal of government support, both in terms of capital costs and operating subsidy. I'm not sure any private investor would choose to put a zoo there. Mogo is in the middle of a holiday coast and is one of the few "poor weather" attractions on that coast. Halls Gap - got to say the best word I have for their plans is "adventurous", of course I wish them good luck.
I take back that statement. the population base for Dubbo is close to 200,000 people. I.e. there are around 200,000 people that rely on dubbo for something, rather than orange or bathurst which service populations of less than half this while being bigger cities. It might be interesting for some to note that TWPZ first year attendances were 178,000 and a few hundred more. can't remember exact numbers. The majority of visitors to Dubbo make the trek for the zoo, Locals are not as interested in visiting it as they once were.
Jarkari - what is the current visitation figure for TWPZ? Interesting to note that in western Queensland, every [without exception] major tourist attraction reported peak visitation figures in it's first year of operation and gradually declining figures for each subsequent year.
I've heard, but don't quote me that Australia Zoo's attendances (in it's peak while Steve was around) averaged out to around 5,000 people each day. between $100,000 - $250,000 everyday in income not including retail and encounters. Plus whatever they charge in rent for the caterers. I have a feeling they wouldn't be doing this well at the moment but they are still very popular.
