The very high (ordinary!) entrance fee in mind, those queues are unbelievable (although I bet most of these visitors AT THIS SPECIAL DAY were locals with annual passports and not tourists....)
Hate to burst your bubble, but those with "passports" (like me) don't need to queue at the ticket box, they can go straight to the gate, show their pass and walk right in. Everyone in this queue is purchasing tickets.
@Hix: You did the point (It is so logical, how could I not think about this?!)
But I still just wonder, which kind of visitors (majority) was queueing up that day?
- foreign tourists? As Pygathrix wrote, I also think they prefer beaches or parties with their relatives/friends.
- Locals? As you wrote I guess most will have a annual passport or prepare their home for a party.
So maybe Australians from outside Greater Sydney?
Tourists in Sydney with no friends (there is pretty well nothing else to do in Sydney on Christmas Day as everything is shut).
People who don't celebrate Christmas.
Back in the 80's there were some Christmas days when there was less than 100 people visiting (sometimes much less than 100). During the nineties a lot of Asian families living in Sydney started coming in and the numbers grew rapidly.
Ten years ago when I left the Zoo we getting about 3,000 on a sunny Xmas day. But last week it felt more like 6 - 7,000.
I'm guessing now that there are even more locals who, knowing nothing else is open, think it would be a good place to go (as the beach is usually packed solid).
Yes, Tourists from Asia could be (one part) of the answer. Their economical potential has growing in the last years and I can also identify some of them on the picture (but none that look like a TYPICAL European or US-American tourist).
But if the biggest part are locals, then I beg your pardon and I would have lost my bet. It seems that the economy in Australia isn't that bad as I thought and that a family of 4 can easily spend 112.20 Australian Dollars for a zoo visit...
By the way: Is Taronga (still) getting any kind of financial support from the community/government?
Wow, that's pretty busy! I went Christmas Day 2013 and there were very few people there, no real queues anywhere. The weather was probably the reason why, it rained much of the day, but it was mostly just drizzle. I think the entry facilities have improved somewhat since then too though, which may have been a factor.
