Top 30 European Zoos: Attendance

Top 30 European Zoos – Attendance

1- Berlin - Germany - 3 million
2- Vienna - Austria - 2.5 million
3- Stuttgart - Germany - 2.2 million
4- Leipzig – Germany – 2.1 million
5- Zurich - Switzerland - 1.8
6- Basel - Switzerland - 1.75
7- Hamburg - Germany - 1.7
8- Munich - Germany - 1.7
9- Cologne - Germany - 1.65
10- Hanover - Germany - 1.6
11- Arnhem - Netherlands - 1.52
12- Rotterdam - Netherlands - 1.45
13- Chester - U.K. - 1.4
14- Karlsruhe – Germany – 1.35
15- Prague - Czech. Rep. - 1.3
16- Amsterdam - Netherlands - 1.25
17- Copenhagen - Denmark - 1.2
18- Nuremberg - Germany - 1.15
19- Barcelona - Spain - 1.15
20- Antwerp - Belgium - 1.1
21- Berlin Tierpark – Germany – 1.05
22- London – U.K. – 1.03
23- Dublin – Eire – 1.01
24- Duisburg – Germany – 1
25- Frankfurt – Germany – 1
26- Gelsenkirchen (ZOOM) – Germany – 1
27- Munster – Germany – 1
28- Budapest – Hungary – 1
29- Emmen – Netherlands – 1
30- Madrid – Spain – 1

This list was taken from the book What Zoos Can Do - Update 2013 (by Anthony Sheridan) but a number of the attendance figures are also easily attained via the internet. Moscow is not included as accurate attendance figures are difficult to locate but needless to say it would be challenging for the top position, and other zoos that are huge attendance wise but are not in Sheridan's book include Lyon in France (a free zoo with 2.5 million) and Loro Parque in Spain (1.5 million).

 

Very interesting to read this Snowleopard. Your big contributions to the site are greatly apprechiated. However I have read somewhere that Emmen Zoo is the most visited zoo in Europe, do you know when this book was published, so the information here can be confirmed are up to date?

 

The book was just published in September so it is definitely up to date, and since all of the major zoos across the world release annual reports then it is safe to say that the results are fairly accurate. The only zoos where it is not always an exact figure are those that are free to the public.

 

Okay, good.

Do you know why there are so many American zoos that have 2 million+ visitors per year, while in Europe only 4 zoos have more than 2 million visitors a year ?

 

If you look at the 12 American zoos with 2 million or more annual visitors then there are 4 of them that are free and 2 that are theme parks (Disney and Busch Gardens) so in reality there are only 6 that charge admission and do not have rollercoasters. Europe has 4 on the list plus Moscow, and I've heard rumors that the Russian zoo has something crazy like 5 million annual visitors. Who knows if that is true or not, but it seems impressive.

 

The fact that zoo and people density in Europe are higher might have an effect i.e. some of the zoos in the USA probably have little "local" competition whereas in some places in Europe there can easily be up to a dozen top quality zoos within a couple of hours drive all effectively competing with one another.

 

I'm missing Pairi Daiza, which should be at least above Antwerp, being the most visited zoo in Belgium during 2013.

 

There are at least 4 zoos that just missed out on 1 million visitors as of the time the book was published in September:

Osnabruck - Germany - 950,000
Rhenen - Netherlands - 910,000
Beauval - France - 900,000
Pairi Daiza - Belgium - 900,000 (another year and giant pandas will increase this number!)

 

Not an original comment from me, but London's attendance figure for a city of its size is low. There are other tourist attractions in Vienna, Amsterdam, and Copenhagen, all of them capital cities with old zoos, yet all received more visitors. Equally worthy of comment is Cologne; both Gelsenkirchen and Duisburg are nearby (as are Wuppertal and Dortmund, both of which which in the UK would push hard for the tag of #2 collection), yet its attendance was higher than London has had since the mid 1970s.

And also interesting that after twenty years of reunification, Berliners are still three times more likely to visit the Zoo than the Tierpark.

 

I would argue that none of those cities are comparable with London in terms of the amount of competition their zoos face from other attractions. And Amsterdam and Copenhagen only received marginally more visitors.

Probably impossible but I would love to know how each zoo measures visitor numbers, how many are repeat visits, how many are local vs tourists and so on. In themselves, I don't think statistics like these are especially meaningful.


A separate point, sorry to be picky but Dublin Zoo isn't in Eire it's in Ireland. Éire is the name of the country in Irish but to use the word Eire in English is anachronistic.

 

I was expecting you to pop up, Shirokuma! Surely the point is that all of these cities are a lot smaller? And Amsterdam is in a small country packed with good zoos. These factors surely balance each other out.

Totally agree with you about repeat visits; forty years ago London merited two visits a year simply to see everything! And I also agree with you about the usage of Eire, which I think was discarded in 1949....

 

I am sure for many of us, a visit to the zoo was a yearly pilgrimage.

Now that I am older and less easy to please, a visit to my local zoo - Edinburgh - is a 3-4 year event.

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Thanks for pointing that out! I'm not the one that uses the term as I'm simply quoting Mr. Sheridan's book. I do recall the name Eire being used for the Rep. of Ireland national football (soccer) team around the early 1990's.

 

there are some flaws, as Emmen is in the top-30, but is not anymore by far. The last few years they had an attendance of 700.000. Further many German results (e.g. Hannover) are obtained via the "VDZ-schlussel", which gives normalized numbers for Germany, but is mostly an over-estimation...

 

The reason why the Zoo is visited more frequently is unfortunately a practical one- with no solution yet:
The Zoo is in the center of the city and can be easily reached by tourists and locals alike.
The Tierpark is comparatively far out, at least this is the feeling if City West was once the center of your life.
But as many have suggested here the Tierpark is a (sleeping) beauty, that will eventually come to life.

 

An interesting question:
I was told that Berlin multiplies visitor numbers using a strange key for people with an annual ticket.

 

And Antwerp has been below a million for a couple of years now. In 2012 and 2013 it even had less then 900.000 visitors. Pairi Daiza had for 2013 already 1.2 million visitors and with the Pandas that number is expected to increase for 2014.

 

well you know a special signal goes off in my batcave and I have to rush to the aid of ZSL

 

As I have mentioned on previous related posts visitor numbers should always be measured against ticket price.
Almost all zoos would rather have a million visitors paying £20 than 5 million paying £3