To echo Crowthorne, yes, generally overseas and “day-trippers” at London along with the regulars. Whipsnade is more Memberships based I’d say, particularly families.
UK zoos & lockdown going forward...
- Thread starter TriUK
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To echo Crowthorne, yes, generally overseas and “day-trippers” at London along with the regulars. Whipsnade is more Memberships based I’d say, particularly families.
I'd just like to say that it's great news to see zoo's gradually opening up again,and i'm hoping with all my heart that those struggling financially,can steer clear of closure with hopes that someone or some organisation,can steep in to support them.
Also,i am all for the social distancing measures that zoos and wildlife parks are setting up as we come through the pandemic crisis,but i feel that those collections keeping their indoor houses,such as reptile,invert houses,aviaries and aquariums,closed,,should not charge full price if only half the animals are on show for visitors to see. On the other hand,safety comes first and repuperating the financial losses brought through by the prolonged closures,is also important.
Also,i am all for the social distancing measures that zoos and wildlife parks are setting up as we come through the pandemic crisis,but i feel that those collections keeping their indoor houses,such as reptile,invert houses,aviaries and aquariums,closed,,should not charge full price if only half the animals are on show for visitors to see. On the other hand,safety comes first and repuperating the financial losses brought through by the prolonged closures,is also important.
To be fair in most cases, the zoos that have opened haven't had trouble selling their tickets!
Even London, already overpriced at £30 had no trouble despite almost half the zoo being closed.
Port Lympne was £5 or 6 cheaper than usual because the safari is closed though
Andrew Swales
Well-Known Member
This is contradictory...
First - you say that your are delighted to see zoos earning again.
Second - you want them to slash their prices!
Zoos have not chosen to keep the buildings closed - it is a Government directive.
In our case the daily limit we have self-imposed on ourselves is a quarter that set for our site, based on just the length of paved paths and not taking into account huge areas of mown lawns. This total is around a third of what it should be at this time of year, is working well so far - but will have to be increased soon. Our catering revenue is also massively down, largely because the Government wont allow seating next to our take-away.
So - overall we are delighted to be trading again, and hope things improve steadily - but whilst our income is around a third of what it should be and we have hundreds of thousands of pounds of debt; your demand that we slash our prices is unrealistic and unfair - especially as the pubic reaction has been so overwhelmingly positive.
Hopefully the seemingly-imminent reduction of the 2m distance to 1m will help with this.
It has occurred to me a few times recently that this would be a really good time to invest in a company just producing little adhesive stickers that say '1 metre' on them...
Just a thought, not to go into my personal details not that I would any ways but what’s to stop members of zoo’s form joe public not the people on here of course whom are quite aware of there general financial plight at the present time From block booking tickets to go and then not actually bothering as it won’t cost them anything as members thus resulting in the zoo’s not getting income from actual ticket sales or revenues from other members coming and spending at the shop / refreshments etc
Andrew Swales
Well-Known Member
Yes Maguari we expect so; it will allow the removal of screens and extra barriers from primates and mustelids, and should make the one-way systems flow better, too.
If I read you correctly, then in our case our on-line system only allows the purchase of a maximum of ten tickets, zero priced tickets for toddlers can only be ought in combination with adult tickets, members buying zero priced tickets do so with a one-off code set by us. These checks and others are incorporated into the ticketing software, and are editable from our pc.
Ok I see that I was just thinking as I’ve just been given the all clear from the wife to start taking the kids back to the zoo’s, we are members at Twycross thou I haven’t check there system yet I was wondering if there was any thing to stop me not that I would just booking four tickets for are four members for every day for the next few months then simply going as we please in the knowledge it hasn’t cost us anything, would you be able to stop a member just booking every day even if they where able to attend every day knowing they prob won’t thus preventing other members or paying public to have that spot
Twycross check your booking reference and name on their computer system when you arrive at the zoo - so they have the ability to check who of those booked has been in and if anyone hasn't, who hasn't. I'm not sure if they do check - but conceivably they would be able to tell if the same person was doing this repeatedly. Of course, there are many legitimate reasons why someone might not turn up, so I'm not sure if they'd want to take any action, but they would be able to tell if they were inclined to look.
Andrew Swales
Well-Known Member
You would have to ask Twycross about their system, as I dont know who provides it, or if they have had it made for their own web-site. We can switch codes on and off as we need, see who is buying and ordering tickets, and manually over-ride the automatic sales and set arrival slots and quotas. Going forward, it will deal with season tickets, keep a tally of visits made and record all visitors, which we have not done before.
Was just thinking as I work all over the country and am mostly in hotels pre covid so we would stay in chains that are used to pre booking arrangements over the net and have cancellations pre twelve say on the day before departure or on the day of arrival so if we had a job in a few months would book rooms for that time possible for a week or two longer than needed and just amend on the day of arrival or check out early as required now to the bigger chains pre covid this would be the norm now to zoos how having a pre book system to relie on this cant be the case to survive
I think (and hope) that ZSL is pretty safe currently. There is definitely a divide, as @Andrew Swales has identified, of zoos in population centres with a captive audience (for want of a better phrase) and zoos in out of the way tourist spots. I hope and pray that the latter pull through this.
I would hope so to but I would fear more for zsl than other tourist spots like Newquay and Blackpool as let’s be honest we ain’t going abroad this year and other tourist spots for us to go to for any sort of a holiday are going to be half the price of London
Rumours tonight of 1m social distancing to be announced as early as Tuesday. Good times to be a vinyl printing company.
Considering how many people fail to adhere to the 2m rules I dread to think what it will be like with 1m! Sadly I fear this won't end well, but obviously hope to be proved wrong.
I think part of the purpose of 2m was that (given most people haven't a clue how far it is) people would, generally, stay about 3 or 4 feet apart. I fear this will be seen as "halving" the safe distance so people will now consider 18 inches to a couple of feet as appropriate.
Andrew Swales
Well-Known Member
You are both right, but I would say that the distance has not been in the same in all countries, and those which have lower distances from the start, have not shown any higher incidence of disease.
The failure to adhere to requirements is widespread, and not even the Government can police them in the House of Commons itself. A bad example has been set from the start by authorities and individuals who have not done themselves what they were demanding the public did, and are are attempting to control the situation by fear, confusion, discrimination and miss-information. It is perhaps not so surprising that people do not listen and dont read the signs..?
Whatever other people do, does not mean you have to personally do the same.
Absolutely. The 2 metre rule is one of the few things that actually offers me any reassurance at all; the less people adhere to it, the less likely I am to want to do 'normal' activities unless I absolutely have to. Taking that rule away is effectively taking away what little confidence I have to consider going out for non-essential reasons. I know I'm just one person, but there are others who feel like me out there for sure - having read some of the reports on this forum about people's differing experiences of visiting zoos last week, I suspect there's a few on here!
As an aside, I see Cotswold warning people that they're very busy again this morning.
If it's any reassurance, keep in mind that 1m is the WHO's recommendation for social distancing (and has been right through this) - so the 1m will still have some tolerance built in for those who are prone to under-estimating the distance they are from others.
Happy to see that the administrators have done their job and the park (including Amazonia) is to re-open: M&D's theme park to re-open after being 'bought out of administration'