The following figures are for some UK collections for 2013, released by ALVA ( Association of Leading Visitor Attractions) Chester Zoo 1,409,249 0.0% change ZSL London Zoo 1,294,483 +26.4% Edinburgh Zoo (RZSS) 760,897 -6% ZSL Whipsnade Zoo 620,762 +14.7% Highland Wildlife Park (RZZS) 136,219 +12.2% http://www.alva.org.uk/details.cfm?p=423
Very interesting figures, I'd love to know them for more zoos in 2013 (I'm sure they'll surface in due course). ALVA (Association of Leading Visitor Attractions) is a bit of a misnomer though -my local Championship football team have higher single match attendances than some of those attractions get in a year.
Interesting to note that Edinburgh are down on numbers,does this suggest that people are now bored of sleeping balls of Black and White fluff that have a poor sex life!!
If you read the small print on the link they're still claiming a success on the basis, "Edinburgh Zoo bucked the trend of a giant panda zoo in year two, seeing only a small decrease of 6%; their visitor numbers still remain 40% higher than pre-panda visitor numbers. ", which seems a fair conclusion really. It'll be interesting to see whether visitors remains 40% up for the next few years though.
All those stats seem fairly impressive to me, with Edinburgh's slight fall inevitable. London's increase is astonishing and must be down to either an excellent marketing job for tiger territory or a poor 2012!
Interesting theory (my first thought too) and seemingly supported by the visitor numbers below. And they said the Olympics were beneficial to London. The uplift in 2013* is still seems really impressive compared with other recent years (pretty much a 20% uplift on years 2009-2011). 2009: 1,059,170 2010: 1,011,257 2011: 1,090,741 2012: 974,433 2013: 1,294,483 *The cynic in me feels duty bound to point out that visitor numbers are sometimes distorted by changes in measuring and estimating techniques.
Thanks for those figures, they show it was, as you say, a very impressive increase on the previous years. 2012 was down slightly, probably due to the general foreign tourist( which helps boost the figures) being put off visiting London during the olympics & probably the locals avoiding public transport during that time. It maybe down to tiger territory then, i wonder whether figures increased in years other major exhibits opened eg gorilla kingdom?
It's also worth noting that 2012 wasn't great weather-wise, whilst 2013 was much better. Others may disagree (!), but I think these figures show that London Zoo is getting its mojo back, that it is, to a far greater extent than it has been in the recent past, a nice place to visit - the new restaurant and improved levels of customer service are important too. That's not to say that I don't think it would be even better if it had a Pilsen-style collection of birds and smaller mammals, of course.... The Edinburgh figure may represent a slight small on 2012, but is still extraordinary. For many years, the zoo was stuck on about half a million visitors a year.
Chester Zoo 1,409,249 0.0% change Does this mean that the visitor figures at Chester for 2013 are exactly the same as for 2012? A very strange co-incidence if it does. Anyway it is nice to see the correct total published for Chester, the Annual Report will most likely give the attendance as 1,409,000. A few years ago I asked why they did not publish the total number of visitors and the reply was so that people can understand the figure better. I am perfectly capable of understanding what 1,409,249 means and feel insulted by the response of the zoo to my question.
Does any one know colchester zoo visitor numbers for the last few years. would be interesting to compare with the others.
As if to illustrate all statistics have to viewed through a bull**** filter I've noticed something a little inconsistent with Edinburgh figures from different sources. The ALVA figures cite 2013's 760,897 as 40% higher than pre-Panda figures -this effectively implies pre-Panda figures of no more than 543,500. In "What Zoos Can Do", published pre-Pandas, the visitor numbers are published at 645,000 -a 40% uplift of which would yield 903,000 visitors. The above figures can't both be correct either "WZCD" exaggerated the figures or the AVLA figures are incorrect about the 40% rise. Personally I tend towards the former explanation (that's not to say that the ALVA figures are necessarily correct) as I was always incredulous of some of Sheridan's figures (much as I love Colchester I struggle to believe believe it's ever had 750,000 visitors in a year).
