It always amazes me that British zoos close so early, even in summer. There was a time when many British zoos closed as late as 7 p.m. or dusk. Now it's common for zoos to shut by 5 o'clock in summer, earlier in fact than most high street shops. Why did they cease to operate longer opening hours as was once the norm and which zoos stay open the longest every day?
That's really interesting, that in the UK people are leaving that early (and not only because it is closing early) - in Germany many zoos are open until 7 or 8 p.m. and the animal houses maybe close at 6 or 6.30 p.m. Last week I've been at Pairi Daiza in Belgium and they are open until 9 p.m. during summer and for the weekends in July where they have a music festival in the evenings they are open even until 11 p.m.
This reasoning might make sense from a purely economic stance, but is oversimplified. In the Netherlands, Germany and Switzerland most zoos open at 9 (some even at 8) and stay open to 6 or 7 in many cases. The times from 9-10:30 and from 4:30 onwards attract a very specific niche of visitors: annual pass holders, often nerds or people with small kids, who enjoy the quiet and visit very specific corners of the zoo. It is a great service that such zoos offer that is highly appreciated by a relatively small group, economically it is also not that expensive... You would be surprised at how many people turn up at 8 am in Nuremberg Zoo. 8 am is a more common opening time in Eastern Europe where life tends to start earlier anyway than in Western and especially Southern Europe...
At this time of year some zoos extend their opening hours, for example Chester and Paignton are both open until 6 pm until the schools go back in September.
It is possible that zoos in a holiday area or with a different visitor demographic might be different. Not really sure how it can be 'oversimplified' or how behaviour of people in Nuremberg or Switzerland can be compared. The fact remains that we have trialled both earlier and later opening, and have retracted back to a 10am to 5.30pm day in the summer and a 10am till 4pm day in the winter, because even as visitor numbers rise annually, there is no demand outside these hours. Admittedly we don't hold music concerts, and are not going to...
Can it have somethig to do with that Hamerton is relatively in the middle of nowhere and a smaller zoo?
To some degree I think there may be an element of self-perpetuation as well; UK collections tend to close around rush hour, so people leave early to avoid the rush, so there is a perceived lack of interest in the collections remaining open later. And thus the cycle continues.... In those collections on the continent which I have visited and which remain open significantly beyond 5pm or thereabouts, I've noticed a slight increase in numbers as the evening progresses, after an afternoon trough - presumably people who have left work for the day and are taking the opportunity to visit the zoo for a few hours?
Apart from those obviously in city centres, I would not have expected that at most zoos visitors arrive on foot - certainly not in the UK. Having seen the size of car-parks at zoos of all sizes, most visitors surely are dependent on their car. Given that is the case and a visit involves (say, on average) a half-hour car journey each way, then what difference does locality make?
Well, there is also the issue of public transport - a collection closer to a large population hub and well-served by public transport will have slightly different visitor demographics to somewhere like Hamerton where - as you very accurately note - visitors will only really arrive by car barring those local to the village. Unless they're me, and walk from the nearest bus stop 4 miles away
Does a significant percentage of visitors arrive at Banham, or Linton, or Woburn, or Highland, or Exmoor, or Longleat, or Yorkshire, or, or... - by bus?
Probably not, given the fact that only four of these collections are reachable by public transport themselves to the best of my knowledge (Highland, Exmoor, Linton and Yorkshire) and none are easily so, but I suspect that at collections such as Edinburgh, Chester and Wingham which are directly served by public transport things might be different; in any case I intended to indicate the effect that locality can have on visitor demographics rather than to suggest on-foot traffic is the norm anywhere, so I've edited my initial post to show I was replying to the whole of your comment rather than the remark about foot traffic
The handful I chose at random were just that and not really intended to be taken specifically. The list could have been boringly long! My point was that you can get quite a good idea of the footfall (and indeed dwell time) of a zoo from the size of its car-parks (in rural Britain, at any rate); and this must mean that the greater majority of visitors arrive by car. Given this, and a travel distance of say between a few minutes to a couple of hours, averaging at say half an hour (?), I am not sure that geographical position can be related directly to opening times. In a city where it is easy to pop in, the situation is very different. I am not sure of the position now, but certainly in say The Netherlands a few years ago the school day started and finished much earlier, allowing a considerable second 'wave' of visitors to attend after the schools finished.
Somewhat off-topic for this thread but Linton Zoo is easily reached by public transport: within a few minutes walk from Cambridge railway station there is a bus stop served by bus routes 13 and 13A both of which go to Linton.
No one has mentioned how zoos staff extra opening hours. London Zoo currently has five walkthroughs which must be constantly attended either by volunteers or by paid staff assisted by volunteers. Paying staff for extra hours (and many of them start at 8 am!) and/or persuading volunteers to stay on longer might be neither affordable or easy.
