| Zoo |
How operations are financed, funds acquired and investments made |
| Australia Zoo; Queensland |
Australia Zoo, which relates to the late Steve Irwin, has been established as the “ultimate wildlife destination”. It differentiated itself from other Queensland theme park attractions with the focus of its wildlife as well as developing its brand name as the ‘home of the crocodile hunter’ (Searle, 2014). The zoo has gain competitive advantages over its primary competitors by offering unique and superior products and services. It is not in the objective of establishing a conventional zoo; it is in the objective of making people happy and offering memorable wildlife experiences. Its marketing strategy is customer-focused, with customers’ satisfactions being its priority (Pride, Ferrell, Lukas, Schembri, & Niininen, 2012). The zoo target audience analysis involves two key areas which are family friendly activities, attractions and the second being adventure and thrill filled activities and experiences. Australia Zoo has recognized that children have more influence over household decisions (Tinson, 2011). Therefore, they use exciting and attention grabbing commercials to attract children. For instance, the zoo advertised i the Crikey Magazine, school programs, children’s community support programs, and informative E-commerce websites. Australia Zoo also advertised through television such as the family fun television program featuring Bindi and Bob Irwin combination interacting with the zoo animals. This has been used to attract family with young children whereas more action packed advertisements, for example, crocodile wrestling are used to gain interest of young adults (Searle, 2014).Australia zoo also offers real wildlife experiences which allow children and young adults to get up close and personal with animals. This allows visitors to gain a multi-sensory experience by seeing and touching the animals at the zoo. Such activities include hand-feeding wombats, giant tortoise, red kangaroos, grey kangaroos, and elephants. Moreover, the zoo has organized “Zoo Keeper for a Day programs” so that visitors of all ages have the opportunity to experience the life of a zoo keeper and enjoy interactions with the animals. To ensure continuous visits to the zoo, visitors can enjoy different experiences with different animals according to the season and programs available ("from http://www.australiazoo.com.au- Australia Zoo," 2015).In addition, Australia Zoo has also introduced an annual pass system that permits visitors unlimited entries into the zoo at a lower price. Annual pass holders are able to enjoy free daily animal shows. Besides, education program was introduced as part of the zoo’s programs and activities offered. This provides an outdoor classroom for the students of all age which enables them a chance to explore more about nature and real wildlife environment as well as applying theories learned from school into practice, such as recycling, wildlife preservation and conservation. Consequently, Australia Zoo will be able to benefit in term of sales when teachers bring their students there for such programs ("from: http://www.australiazoo.com.au/- Australia Zoo," 2015). |
| Singapore Zoo |
Singapore Zoo also known to locals as Mandai Zoo was first opened in 1973. It covers 28 hectares of land. This strategic location for tourist is surrounded by other wildlife attractions such as Night Safari, River Safari and the Orchid Gardens. Out of all the attractions, the most popular being the Singapore Zoo presents various animals roaming freely in its natural wild habitat favoured by open space of glass shields ("from: http://www.riversafari.com.sg/l- Wildlife Reserves Singapore," 2015). It attracts nearly 1.6 million visitors annually ("from: http://richieast.com/singapore-zoo-one-of-the-most-beautiful-in-the-world/ - Singapore Zoo – One of the Most Beautiful in the World," 2013).One of Singapore Zoo’s marketing strategies is promotion. The zoo relies a lot on promotion to attract visitors. Heavy promotion was carried out to advertise Singapore River Safari as Asia’s first and only river themed wildlife park attraction ("from: http://www.riversafari.com.sg/l - Wildlife Reserves Singapore," 2015). This was done by using creative promotional tactics which was named the “out of home campaign”. The campaign was featured across the city of Singapore on public transportation services, for example, advertisement graphics featuring animals such as Crocodilians the Gharial appearing to bite taxi passengers and a school of piranhas gathering on the corner of a bus stop. The purpose of the campaign is to allow citizens to interact with the advertisements and attract them to visit the River Safari (from: http://www.mumbrella.asia/2014/01/singapore-zoo- "Singapore Zoo gets creative with out-of-home to promote new River Safari attraction," 2014). Singapore Zoo expanded its operation by establishing the Night Safari. The Singapore Night Safari opened on 26 May 1994, papers as the world’s first wild life night park; it provides local residents and tourists an insight of the tropical jungle at night by displaying a wide range on nocturnal animals. To celebrate the Night Safari’s 20th Anniversary, Singapore Zoo, officially introduced a pair of white lions in addition the Asiatic black bears and Malayan tigers that would be the finale to the park’s 35 minute tram experience ("from: https://wrscomsg.wordpress.com/2014/05/24/20-years-of-fun-in-the-dark-with-night-safari/ - Singapore Zoo - 20 Years of Fun in the Dark with Night Safari," 2014) and promoted this through the social media and the traditional media.Besides, special discount are given to students when they booked as a school. Discounts are also given to those registered under the development disability registry (DDR) and voluntary welfare organizations. Moreover, admission fees will be given a discount up to 30% if the tickets were to be bought online. Membership plans were also introduced by the zoo. Membership holders are able to enjoy unlimited access and free tram rides on weekdays as well as a host of exciting privileges. To appeal more to the public, Singapore Zoo provides free admission and 10% off all retail purchases and food and beverages (F&B) to a birthday person. In line with Singapore’s Jubilee Celebrations, the zoo offered a special discount of 50% from admission and ticket bundling for Jurong Bird Park, Night Safari, River Safari and Singapore Zoo ("from: http://www.riversafari.com.sg/l- Wildlife Reserves Singapore," 2015).Attractions used by Singapore zoo comprised of animal photography, guided tours, feeding times, foods and beverages, shops in zoo, Kidzworld, camps, jungle breakfast with wildlife, rides, friendly facilities for the disabled and shows organized according to the season. Another attraction is Kidzworld, which was created in the year 1973. It consists of Play land and Animal Land ("Singapore Zoo," n.d.). Animal land allows children to have real life experience to play with domestic animals such as chickens, rabbits and sheep. Play land on the other hand provides conventional play equipment. Other than that, children are also given the chance to become a keeper of animals for a day. This program includes activities like brushing the glossy manes of the zoo’s flabella and feeding its lovable giant rabbits (from: http://www.riversafari.com.sg/l - "Wildlife Reserves Singapore," 2015). |
| Chester Zoo, Cheshire, England |
Chester Zoo is 125 acres of award-winning zoological garden hosting over 12,000 animals of more than 400 species. It is widely acknowledged as the largest conventional zoo in the United Kingdom (UK) ("from: http://homeeducationcard.co.uk/chester-zoo.html Chester Zoo," 2015). In addition, according to TripAdvisor, it was named the best zoo in the UK, voted second best zoo in Europe and placed sixth in the world’s top zoos ("from: http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/whats-on/whats-on-news/chester-zoo-best-zoo-uk-7562682 - Chester Zoo named best zoo in the UK," 2014). It attracts more than 1.4 million visitors annually, thus, it is certain that marketing strategies employed by the zoo is reason for its success.Zoos target market is predominantly children and families with children; hence, this limits opportunities in growth and market sales. As stated by Whitworth (2012), the main motivation in visiting zoos were children orientated (75% of zoos visiting groups contain at least one child) and not having children was the leading reasons of not visiting a zoo within the past three years. As a result, to increase market share, Chester Zoo has expanded its target market to senior citizens and the disabled community. This was done by providing many unique services, for example, providing disabled parking bays, free wheelchairs and electronic scooters for hire, hearing loops to assist in better hearing for partially deaf visitors, wheelchair elevators in enclosures and exhibition houses and free admission for visitors’ registered assistant dogs ("from: http://www.chesterzoo.org/plan-your-visit/accessibility-for-disabled-visitors - Chester Zoo - Accessibility for Disabled Visitors," n.d.). The innovative initiatives provided by Chester Zoo in order to meet the needs of its new target market would act as an incentive and attract them to visit the zoo as many other zoos may not provide and meet the needs required by these communities.Moreover, to attract more visitors for the whole year round remains a challenge for zoos. In countries such as the UK, where it rains constantly, Chester Zoo has developed a program known as the ‘Wet Walk’ and constructed its layout to suit rainy days. Thus, encouraging visits and attracts crowds even during unconventional weather conditions ("from: http://www.chesterzoo.org/~/media/Files/Plan%20your%20visit/Wet%20Weather%20trail.ashx – Chester Zoo, Welcome to Chester Zoo Wet Walk," n.d.). Besides, to offer other different zoo experiences, Chester Zoo has constructed various inventive facilities and activities. This includes the Zoofari monorail station; which provides a “giraffe eye view” of the zoo and its animals, the waterbus; offering visitors a less frantic and relaxing way to observe and witness its animals and visitors can also embark on a tropical wildlife expedition of 6 South East Asian islands in the newly opened Islands in Danger ("from: http://www.visitmanchester.com/articles/attractions/chester-zoo/ - Chester Zoo - A Wild Day Out for All.," n.d.). Such activities can be viewed in Social media is a tool widely used by Chester Zoo, such as, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr. This is done to further increase interest in target audiences not only locally but globally, thus, assisting in building public awareness and the Chester Zoo brand name. Such activities include live streaming of animals, view of the zoo’s facilities, updates on new additions to the species and activities at the zoo. For example, Chester Zoo was gaining numerous media attention after uploading, on its social media platforms, a rare hatching video of one of the world’s rarest duck which took place at the zoo (Moodley, 2015). The ducklings will be on display to visitors when they are older. By using social media to illustrate the happenings of Chester Zoo, it is able to constantly update and draw potential visitors worldwide to visit it in the near future to gain new experiences and see exotic animals that are offered by Chester Zoo. |
