I smell a school assignment .........
Quite possibly. It is an odd first post for someone from LA.
However, I will attempt to answer because it is an interesting question. I'm going to say 'no' because at least at the moment, not a single one of the 10 SEQ animal attractions is a 'category killer'. They all carve off more or less different parts of the market:
- Dreamworld is a theme park first and animal attraction very much second. I doubt many people visit primarily to see the tigers and native animals.
- Sea World is Australia's major marine mammal park. There are no competitors other than Pet Porpoise Pool for dolphin shows. Plus, again they are a theme park as well.
- Currumbin Sanctuary, Australia Zoo and Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary are heavily geared towards international and (in Beerwah's case) interstate tourists.
- Darling Downs, Underwater World and Alma Park Zoo are targeted largely at locals. That's not to say that the others aren't visited by locals, but they rely less upon them.
- Ipswich Nature Centre and David Fleay Wildlife Park are both low-cost (free in Ipswich's case?) small native collections geared towards education of locals and conservation of Queensland species.
No one institution has a category-killing collection or price-point that can enable them to dominate more than one of these sectors and start to squeeze out the competition. If you wanted to see all of the major groups of animals that you could see even at a small zoo like National Zoo and Aquarium in Canberra, you would at the very least need to visit about 4 institutions in South-East Queensland.
Until one zoo can boast even a reasonably diverse collection, there'll be plenty of niche roles for businesses in the region to fill.
