You are a gem! However, Zoochatters are far from average zoo-going visitors.
Are zoos expensive?
- Thread starter Ned
- Start date
You are a gem! However, Zoochatters are far from average zoo-going visitors.
This is true - but at the very start, I probably was just an average zoo-going visitor for quite some time, just going to enjoyment and recreation, before it became an obsession and a lifeline, and before I became a ZooChatter!
Yeah, but Disneyland's not in a capital city and doesn't have the wonderful history.
sooty mangabey
Well-Known Member
I’m not sure this is true. I’ve just looked up Eurodisney tickets, and the cheapest, most basic day tickets are £47 - and, again, this obviously doesn’t include extraneous purchases, should these be made.
This whole discussion is quite interesting. Clearly, for people reading this thread, most zoo admission prices aren’t expensive, in so far as they provide pretty high utility - if you read Zoochat, you can probably find enough at London Zoo to make that £29.75 relatively good value (6 or 7 hours worth of “entertainment”).
But the question would be, how does the market respond to the the prices set? Ceratinly, in the UK, the evidence suggests that zoo entry prices are not seen as being particularly high (even if they are high, in historical terms). I don’t think you’d want too many more visitors at some of our zoos: Chester and London can both seem very crowded, there have been plenty of recent stories of Twycross being full to capacity, Colchester receives around a million visitors a year.... Thus, the laws of supply and demand seem to suggest that the prices are about right - which, taking it away from the very small sector of the market represented here on Zoochat, is possibly the only valid way of considering things.
Incidentally, given how crowded London can feel with its current 1.2 million visitors a year (or thereabouts) what must it have been like when the figures were twice as high? More houses and exhibits to soak up the crowds, admittedly, but even so...
I believe that everything is expensive in London, so I guess it’s to be expected, rather than as a reflection on the zoo itself.
BeakerUK
Well-Known Member
London on the whole can be expensive, but not necessarily so - the Natural History Museum, Science museum and British Museum are all free. Tate galleries are free. Standing tickets at ROH for under a tenner. I am sure there are other examples. I am not suggesting London Zoo should be free of course, nor that it is a reasonable price or not.
The major London museums are free entry, but temporary exhibitions can be pretty expensive; at the British Museum last I checked that was £10 for the smaller exhibition space and £16 for the big 'blockbuster' exhibition space. The big exhibitions would take me around 2 hours (although as a member of the Museum Association I got in free, otherwise they would have been far too expensive). In comparison, a whole day at London zoo for around £30 is good value. Sundries like tea and food is also much more expensive at the British Museum than at London zoo.
Welsh Zootographer
Well-Known Member
Today I went to Chester Zoo (first zoo visit in 3 and a half years!) and it was gone 2:00pm by I got there, even later by I'd queued to pay and they closed at 5:00pm (I thought it would be 6:00pm) so I was there for less than 3 hours at a cost of £26. As a one off I would think that was quite expensive, but I converted it to a £90 annual membership which is quite good value. 
Marne-la-Vallée might not be the 1er, but Paris is very much a capital city. Not that location is necessarily indicative of cost.
The critique of ZSL's pricing isn't intended to be a reflection on the zoo itself -- which I'm sure is a fine zoo -- but as a cost benefit analysis. ZSL - London is actually cheaper per day than San Diego, but is it that close in perceived value? I'm not sure. An annual passport, for example, is more than paid for after a single visit to both San Diego Wild Animal Park and San Diego Zoo.
One of the benefits of ZSL- London's price is that it's fixed; at least, I don't think they've figured out surge pricing for zoos yet. They will eventually. New cubs? An extra tenner, please. Those £47 Eurodisney tickets are for in the dead-of-winter when half the park's offerings are seemingly closed. Having done it before, I would question the value of said price.
That said, I think you would have to factor in extraneous expenses for out-of-town visitors -- that is, food and souvenirs. Locals may make up the lion's share of the daily turnstile count, but, to take a cue from Disney, it's those occasional visitors that spend the most per capita. If the initial sticker shock puts off a visitor, you've lost all of that extraneous revenue.
San Diego apparently draws in about 4-million visitors a year, but the core of those visitors seem to come during mid-day and are gone well before park closure. I imagine London has a breakdown.
I don't know how you'd police it, but I wonder if there's an opportunity to be had for something akin to a half day ticket?
I meant it more as in that it is in line with most other London prices. I know if I want to stay at a hotel in London, I will generally have to pay more than when I stay elsewhere. I know if I want to see a show in London I will generally have to pay more than when I see a show elsewhere. I guess this is why they have two different ‘living wages’ for inside London and outside London.
Welsh Zootographer
Well-Known Member
sooty mangabey
Well-Known Member
I may be being thick here and not understanding the point you are trying to make - I'm lost as to whether you're arguing that Disney is better or worse value than London Zoo - but the argument that visitors have to buy food and souvenirs seems a ropey one to me. Such secondary purchases are all very nice if they can be afforded, but they're by no means an essential part of a zoo visit. Certainly, when I am feeling skint, I won't be purchasing unnecessary plastic objects of dubious taste in the zoo shop, nor over-priced food in the cafe.
People often complain about the cost of following football by referring to the price of food, drink, replica shirts and so on. I feel the same way about this line of argument - just because I choose to go to see a match, I don't have to buy a pie, a drink, a nasty nylon shirt.....
You mean like the dead-of-winter every Monday to Friday in June?
I should have said usually, but if you wish to be pedantic, sure, you could find £47 tickets throughout the year. The underlying issue of things being closed on these days remains. Parc Disneyland's premiere attraction, Phantom Manor, remains closed until late October. To insist on full price until it's reopened is nuts as there isn't enough to do when three or four other attractions are also routinely closed.
If I may, I believe you're arguing from a localist perspective; i.e., somebody who can and does, in this example, visit ZSL - London on a regular basis. I'm approaching it from a tourist's perspective for whom a trip to, in this example, ZSL - London is a once in a decade chance.
In this instance, the tourist is likely to spend the entire day at the zoo. As such, they're likely a captive audience; food is going to be required irrespective of cost especially if children are involved. Souvenirs are likely as well. Dubious plastic tchotchkes or otherwise. I'm not going to fault the visitor on their choice of consumption at this point in time.
I personally find ZSL - London to have plenty of value for it's cost, but for the typical visitor from North America, Disney and Disneyland are a known commodity. It won't be the exact same thing, but you know you're going to have a high quality experience. ZSL - London? They have lions. The typical North American tourist can see those at home for infinitely less at their home zoo. It's the specialized traveler, the one that posts here on Zoochat, that cares that ZSL- London's lions are Asiatic with a new whizbang exhibit.
Perceived value relative to cost is important. To pick, perhaps, a closer example: If the Wizarding World of Harry Potter gets built near or in London in the next couple of years as rumored, and has a comparable cost, which is going to be perceived as having more value? One has lions, the other is what England is "supposed" to be. Y'know, "quintessentially English" things.
That Julian Barnes novel England, England comes to mind.
I both understand and share this line of thought. I've largely given up on organized sports, but for my local zoos I rarely buy souvenirs or food. I'm also not going to spend the full day each and every time out. Popping in for a couple of hours for something specific is typical.
UK museums were made free by government edict a number of years ago but prior to that were not that cheap if I recall correctly.
BeakerUK
Well-Known Member
I am planning a visit to DLP in February (because it is cheapest then) and, although Phantom Manor should be open by then, it barely even figures on my list of things to do. The main draws for me to DLP are the shows, parades, characters and overall atmosphere, and having watched a lot of vlogs about Disney visits, I am far from being alone in that. I am planning on a 3 day visit and will not struggle in the slightest to keep busy. And there are definitely bigger rides than Phantom Manor - Big Thunder Mountain, (Hyper)Space Mountain, Star Tours, Crush's Coaster, Tower of Terror are all examples of rides that have a big pull. In any theme park I would expect the likelihood of something being closed when I visit to be high - repairs, refurbishments, updating, new builds and so on. Some planned, some unexpected. They need to do this stuff at some point.
I’ve been to Disney four times and never even met Mickey Mouse! The World Dance Council amateur world championships are held there every December, which was my reason for going. I haven’t ever been in the park itself, but I remember that the prices for food and drink on site were unreal. I used to stay at the New York Hotel and I swear that it used to be around €5 for a can of soft drink out of the mini bar and around €22 for a pizza for one person on room service (this was between 2009 - 2012). My other impressions were that the room service menu was very poor after a certain time of night (and not all that late on, either) with only a pizza or a sandwich available, the breakfast was rank with watery scrambled eggs and lamb sausage (can you tell that food is a huge part of my life), and the staff at reception were rude and unhelpful, telling me to go outside and flag my own taxi down because they’d already called enough taxis for people that night.
I don't buy anything in zoo gift shops because I'm not 12 years old. I like to take sandwiched when I'm organised enough to make them. If I'm not organised I might eat at the zoo cafe and justify it as financially supporting the zoo. Either way I resent time spent in a cafe when I could be animal watching. Sandwich on a bench watching animals are definitely best.