I'm really talking international tourists. As I child in Australia I certainly knew about Chi-Chi but had no idea about polar bears at London Zoo.
No, I don't believe so. I will double check next week. If it did it would still be .61 visits per person per annum.
Then it seems a little high? If I were to guess at where each zoo fits into lintworm’s categories, I think it’ll be something like this. Question marks are where I suspect they might be close to falling below the cut-off in that category. 1,000,000+ Melbourne Taronga Sea World Dreamworld Sydney Aquarium? 500,000-1,000,000 Irwinland Adelaide Perth Auckland Melbourne Aquarium Kelly Tarlton? 250,000-500,000 Healesville Werribee Cleland? AQWA Wellington Sea Life Sunshine Coast 100,000-250,000 Lone Pine Monarto Caversham? National Zoo and Aquarium Featherdale Ballarat Currumbin Dubbo Australian Reptile Park Cairns Aquarium Obama Hamilton Maybe there’s a couple of dubious cases like Melbourne Aquarium and Blackbutt Reserve doing a lot of work. I think Seaworld’s case for being a ‘zoo’ is a lot stronger than Dreamworld’s too, but I suspect the latter might make up something approaching 10% of the 22 million figure.
Speaking of Singapore I just checked the total of all four attractions and it came to 5 million out of a population of 5.6 million people giving a ratio of 0.89 visits per person. (Add in the aquarium and it would probably exceed 1) Of course Singapore is another example where the tourism market has been deliberately targeted by zoos, however I understand now the zoos there are focusing on primarily serving the recreational needs of residents.
I took the figure from the website, but will check what is covered. However I think you are underestimating a few places and and also missed a couple.
Those two Polar Bears were equal to Chi-Chi over here, but were cute cubs of course - and the latest such has done wonders for Highland in the last couple of years. He is unique now over here though, as most zoos going back into bears seem to be taking old or non-breeding 'rescue' animals. I still have a feeling that the way a story is told, is equally (if not more) important than the story itself.
I think there should be 4 zoos in the 500000 - 1000000 category for Czech Republic: Ostrava, Plzen, Dvur and Zlin. EDIT: I didn't notice that you were using older data, in that case, those data are correct
In the coming decade I think we are really going to see to what extent Pairi Daiza can become a destination zoo in Europe. If you look at the plans for their tropical 'dome' it seems it is intended to be enough of a draw by itself in winter that people will come and the rest of the zoo is just bonus.
I can't agree with this, at least when it comes to major Czech zoos... • Prague is packed with tourists from abroad all year long (In winter you hear more Russian than Czech there), even though the city is packed with ton of other possible attractions. • Plzen is targeted by Germans during summer, there are buses of them arriving every week. • Being so close to Polish borders, Ostrava is non-surprisingly major player in Polish market, the zoo is now directly focusing at them with offering guided tours in polish language and other stuff. Dvur Kralove is very simmilar in this. • Zlin heavily profits from absence of good zoo in Slovakia.
When visiting Dvůr Králové in September 2019, I actually heard more Polish being spoken by by visitors than I did Czech!
This illustrates how important is a convenient transport connection for a zoo. Zoos should first lobby their local governments for new direct public transport lines to the zoo.
'Public' transport in the UK is not provided by Government, but by private companies - but yes, successful local Government 'lobbying' could well be (one of) the contributing factors behind the huge visitation at YWP and Chester for example. In our case, they wont let us have mains sewerage, put in the correct road signs we are legally entitled to, take away rubbish or mend the roads, let alone put on buses - despite our being the largest zoo in the county.
I think a new bus line to a zoo is something easy to lobby for. There is a win-win situation - the bus line gets the tickets, the zoo gets extra visitors. There are relatively low 'sunk' costs.
!! REALLY !! - you ought to join the real world and offer your professional services to Whipsnade, Cotswold, or dozens of others - a subject covered on here so many times. Just look at the UK thread.
