Borth Animalarium Borth For Sale

[Panthera Puss]

As I see Borth, it could be easily made into a zoo similar to Drusillas within a couple of years if some real investment was made into it.

Drusilla's take (I'm told) about £4 Million a year, favoured as they are by large catchment populations, I guess that's the difference at the end of the day.

One of the problems of the small, relatively isolated zoo is gaining the cultural cache to attract the more intellectual visitor (for want of a better term) while still pleasing the tastes of the holidaying masses. A place like Jersey is arguably an exception in that it has the vast cultural capital of the Durrell name & ethos to trade on both with visitors and sponsoring companies keen to be associated with it (although belts have been tightened of course). Building up that sort of reputation takes time, and therefore money, and needs the right staff, who in turn have to be attracted to the zoo in the first place.

The railway is potentially a great asset, the spectacular journey along the coast itself is a selling point; as with the IOW, it's not really that isolated in this sense (it's possible to commute daily from IOW to London by train for instance). Actually getting people to do the journey & through the doors is the Philosopher's Stone, of course.

 

[Devi]

Building up that sort of reputation takes time, and therefore money, and needs the right staff, who in turn have to be attracted to the zoo in the first place.

This is the point I was trying to make at the start. It needs a wealthy buyer with a lot of ambition who is prepared to make little or no profit for a couple of years in favour of the collection.
That is the only way it will become a succesful zoo.

 

[adrian1963]

I have just found this info after googling Borth Zoo Sale

Buy a Zoo business for sale on Businesses For Sale .com

 

[Shorts]

The population of Ceredigion (which is where the zoo is, not Aberystwyth, that is a nearby town) was 74,941 on the 2001 census. To the south is Pembrokeshire with 114,131 and Carmarthenshire with 172,842, to the north is Gwynedd with 116,843. None of those counties have zoos, and I'm not entirely sure but I think Welsh Mountain would be closest?

Yes, but these population numbers are all still relatively small. Besides Pembrokeshire has two zoos in the form of Folly Farm (which is well regarded by people whose opinion I respect) and Manor House. Both of these are significantly closer for those living in Pembrokeshire (and possibly Carmarthenshire) than Borth. Additionally Welsh Mountain Zoo, which now carries the impressive title of "National Zoo of Wales", is well established and closer for those from Gwynedd.

To be honest, both of us focussing on population sizes may be missing the point. It's down to whether the people/tourists in the area are drawn to visit as much as population numbers. For instance, there's no significant zoological collections in the North-east of England and Dudley Zoo gets very poor numbers given the nearby populations of Dudley, Birmingham and Wolverhampton. That said, you stand a better chance of success in areas of large populations which is why I think/hope Yorkshire Wildlife Park will do well.

The Isle of Wight has a population of 132,731.

Yes, but as already mentioned it has the very large populations of Southampton and Portsmouth on the doorstep.

With a good zoo people will travel, as you say, the Durrel effect, the zoo is so good people are willing to travel a long way to get there.

I'm not sure this is correct with regard to Joe Public -something would have to be pretty spectacular to get significant numbers of people travelling more than, say, two hours for a day visit. That said I drove over two hours to Highland Wildlife Park (awesome) yesterday but I'm a zoo fanatic and didn't have a car containing impatient kids.

As I see Borth, it could be easily made into a zoo similar to Drusillas within a couple of years if some real investment was made into it.

Theoretically possible I agree but the size of investment needed would be so large that any sane investor would not risk it in such a remote area. Put simply, if large sums of money were available and someone had the ambition to run/build a zoo they'd be better off and more likely to start afresh elsewhere.

 

[Shorts]

I have just found this info after googling Borth Zoo Sale

Buy a Zoo business for sale on Businesses For Sale .com

That's shocking. A turnover of only £176,000 and they want £850,000 for it!! With that turnover (less wages, feed and other running costs) it's most likely to be making a loss or at best a miniscule profit. The idea of investing further money and ever getting it (and the purchase money back) would seem a "pipe dream".

I'd also point out that 30,000 visitors yielding a turnover of £176,000 implies a per visitor spend of less than £6. Assuming that visitors spend some money in the cafe and gift shop and the lowest entrance price is £6 this doesn't make mathematical sense (unless someone can help me here?).

 

[couchypunk]

with borth its a place where its kinda hard to find i went there last year, it does need doing up mind but im really shocked to here that there selling it mind, it was quite good but whoever does buy it and hopefully buys it should do it up, and to ALOT of promotion to sell to customers, also there is enough land there for them to expand, the only problem is that there is a waste factory near buy , well quite opposite really, and its quite close to the beach, the birds there a really cool esp the koukoboura, if thats how u spell it, but yea it was about '£5.50 i think they charged us to get in, and when you say that there is around 30,000 in aberystwyth, not forgetting theres a big university there too plus people all over wales most probably have been there, im from the south of wales and i know a few others who have been there too, we need someone like anna ryder richardson to buy the place, because she done manor park amazin :-D

 

[Paradoxurus]

Borth has recently acquired a trio of Patas Monkeys. So there seems to be no sign of them winding down.

 

[Javan Rhino]

I think that this could be great for the right person, or people.
The main problem is the price. It is going to take somebody very rich to go for it, and somebody with the passion and commitment to see it through. However, it is not impossible for it to be turned around for the better.

1) If the buyer or buyers have enough money to use and do not need to see a profit immediately, they could use any excess cash that they get to keep building.
2) Exploit promotions as much as possible and at very little cost. Introduce adoptions, memberships and keeper for a day as soon as possible.
3) Aim high, but not in the short-term. Aim for a multi-award winning zoo that people travel the country to ee, but that will take years. Increase species and animal numbers with [relatively] cheap options (Pets would be a good option, as well as game birds, llamas, farm animals etc)

I don't know if these would work, I don't know much about business. However, if like me you have a dream of running a wildlife park and you have the money to invest, and you are prepared to not see any of that money again for years to come, I think it would be nice.

Also remember, if anybody wants to go for it there is nothing stopping them finding people with similar ambitions and going into it together. If you went into it with one person, it would half the price. If you could find enough people, you could be paying as little as £25-50,000 each.

 

[Nanook]

I have just found this info after googling Borth Zoo Sale

Buy a Zoo business for sale on Businesses For Sale .com

Interestingly their advert has been taken off this site (quoted). The zoo has been up for sale , on and off , for nearly two years. The elderly couple were planning to retire but have had little interest from anyone wanting to purchase the zoo so far. A colleague of mine did look into buying the zoo but on enquiring he discovered there were problems with the lease (I dont know the details) , the asking price is way too high for such a collection in a poor state , obviously its "reputation" preceeds it which does not help either. I think they would be better off transferring the stock to other collections and trying to sell the land , most of it is currently not used, for building on?