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Provides a guide to the increasing number of zoos and associated sites now using the Internet. Investigates the multiple roles of the Internet for zoos, their staff and visitors, in helping them to communicate science and provide a cultural service to the public, in addition to serving as a means of marketing and publicity.

Mixing corporate social responsibility (CSR) with the zoo will likely provoke debate and discourse beyond these pages. However, this chapter intends to use the convergence of this business philosophy with this business area to address the fragile perspectives of responsibe practices in controversial industries. From “oil” to the now more politically correct terminology of “energy,” many industries are trying to reinvent themselves and their missions in light of external pressures. Leisure-related services can also be included and none more so than the modern zoos (and aquariums) that have tinkered with image from family entertainment to conservationists in action. In the sector of visitor attractions, the long-standing issue of zoos and whether it is acceptable to retain animals for the entertainment of spectators have been addressed by the zoo industry itself and by the watchdog organizations alike.

Zoos are important urban tourism attractions. The challenge for zoos is finding a balance between attracting visitors and enhancing education and conservation management. This research contributes to a greater understanding of the conservation intentions of zoo visitors and how zoos can emphasise conservation management principles sustainably. This study aims to identify the variables that encourage conservation intentions among visitors to a South African zoo.

A destination-based survey was conducted in 2019 at the Johannesburg Zoo, and 445 questionnaires were administered through convenience sampling.

Exploratory factor analyses identified visitors’ conservation awareness because of zoos (pre-conscious, conscious and unconscious), behavioural intentions (advocating and supporting), motives (engagement, edutainment and escapism) and satisfaction (interaction and facility quality, and service and interpretation quality). The behavioural intentions were the dependent variables. Advocating conservation intentions (ACI) is an active role where zoo visitors feel a strong responsibility towards conservation and encourage others to the conservation cause. Supporting conservation intentions (SCI) relates more to loyalty towards visiting the zoo and subsequently supporting conservation. Stepwise linear regression analyses revealed that enhancing ACI relies on SCI, edutainment, conscious awareness, service and interpretation quality and total spending. However, enhancing SCI relies on ACI, interaction and facility quality and the motive, escapism, while engagement revealed a negative relationship.

The results show that zoos can encourage SCI to ACI by using interactive and entertaining interpretations to teach visitors about the zoo’s mandate and the importance of conservation while balancing their need to escape.

Controversy occurs among professionals, such as veterinarians and zookeepers in Japan, as to whether a zoo should be educational or recreational. The purpose of this paper is to examine how a zoo's culturally crafted entertainment value conflicts with educational value. Using a front/back framework of the zoo, both entertainment and educational values are negotiated.

This paper conceptualizes differences between a zoo's front and back regions to examine operations and visitor behavior. Observing and interpreting visitor and zoo employee interactions provide rich data about the educational versus recreational dynamic. The author observes visitor behavior in both zoo regions and interprets their cognitive schema.

Animal representation in mass media reinforces the zoo animal's amusement value to visitors, leading to the construction of tourist texts. Tourist text images affect the viewer's perception of reality, sometimes conflicting with the animal's reality. The zoo's back region helps alleviate this paradox. In this process, tour guides play a mediatory role between entertainment and educational values.

The author argues about zoos and zoo animals from the Cartesian dualism view of “culture/nature”. A zoo represents culture's triumph over nature. This paper develops this idea and discusses how entertainment and educational values conflict, and are reconciled, from the perspective of symbolic and pragmatic dimensions.

Strategic management, operation management, health and safety

The authors have been developed the case to be applied for a diploma, undergraduate students and it might help the students in the postgraduate. The case is appropriate for courses in the area of strategic management, operation management and health and safety.

The learning outcomes are as follows: to understand the importance of animal disease prevention and the correct procedures for dealing with disease outbreaks in an animal facility; to reinforce the importance of adherence to strict procedures and chain of command by Life Sciences and Conservation sections in preserving the health of animals, zoo staff and visitors; to recognize the importance of disease monitoring and control in wildlife conservation; and to understand the importance of concrete experience in related positions to provide leaders like Director Mark Craig with the skills to handle such a big responsibility. Al Ain Zoo has such leaders along with a dedicated and resourceful management team that has proven capable of placing the institution among the best conservation parks in the world.

Large collections of animals of diverse species found in zoos and animal parks present a considerable challenge to facility managers in developing and implementing programs to prevent and control the spread of animal diseases. One need to only think about the nightmare consequences of an illness that could decimate a population of animals in a public setting such as a zoo and, in a worst-case scenario, spread to staff, visitors and even the public at large. Biologists have clearly shown how certain types of animals can act as reservoirs for disease viruses, for example, chimpanzees harboring the simian immunodeficiency virus that mutated to HIV or chickens and ducks spreading avian influenza virus to poultry workers and then to the public. Thus, disease control in zoos is an issue of the utmost importance, and managers and operators neglect it at their peril. The reputation and indeed the very existence of an animal park rests in the hands of a dedicated group of managers, veterinarians and technical staff, as well as zoo workers who must strictly follow procedures to prevent and contain animal-borne diseases. This case study focuses on the work of one man in a large internationally known facility to develop, implement, test and evaluate an innovative program for animal disease control. So, what would you do if you were the director of a large metropolitan zoo and your staff veterinarian came to you and said that there was an outbreak of a serious viral disease among a group of animals? Could you have prevented the disease? How will you treat the sick animals and stop the disease from spreading? Is there a risk of the zoo staff contracting the disease from handling sick animals? What about zoo visitors? These are all questions that are addressed in this new and intriguing case study focused on managing animal diseases in the setting of a zoo or wildlife park. Mark Craig, Director of Life Sciences at the Al Ain Zoo in the United Arab Emirates, has plenty to say about the planning, science and management skills necessary to insure that a large population of diverse wild animals remains healthy and thriving. The Al Ain Zoo is the largest of its kind in the Middle East, and while he has been in charge of the animal welfare program for more than six years, there have been few incidents of disease and all have been contained. What can be learned from his effective strategies and leadership skills is clearly discussed and illustrated in this unique real-world case study.

The authors have developed the case to be applied for a diploma, undergraduate students and it might help the students in the postgraduate. The case is appropriate for courses in the area of strategic management, operation management and health and safety.

Teaching notes are available upon request for educators only. These teaching notes should be shared solely with the instructor and students should not have access to. Please contact your library to gain login or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.

CSS 11: Strategy.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the sustainable food procurement (SFP) of members of the British and Irish Association of Zoos and Aquariums (BIAZA). It also considered the inconsistencies between their animal and human food supply chains, as well as between their procurement priorities and practices.

A quantitative, cross-sectional approach was employed, involving the use of a web-based questionnaire to gather data from 41 BIAZA members across 21 indicators of food sustainability. The results were considered within a sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) framework.

There was considerable variation amongst the issues considered by zoos during the SFP process for their animal and human food operations. For both, local expenditure, nutritional content and packaging reduction were some of the highest scoring indicators in practice and as priorities. The overall levels of SFP were found to be equal between the human and animal food supply chains. Significantly low levels of inconsistency were found between the two, practically and in terms of procurement aspirations. Within both supply chains, there was also very few significant gaps between procurement priorities and actions.

The originality of this study lies in its comparison of procurement practices and priorities for two contemporaneous but distinct food supply chains. It demonstrates that it is possible to have a high overall degree of consistency between two parallel, but contrasting, supply chains, as well as between procurement priorities and priorities. It will be of use in SSCM, particularly within values-led organisations.

Marketing management, pricing strategies, zoo management, non-profit organizations.

Difficult. Recommended for courses: marketing, strategy, pricing, customer behaviour, management of non-profit organizations, emerging markets.

The case study deals with the pricing dilemma of the Birch House Zoo located in an Eastern European country. The zoo has implemented capital-intensive developments in the recent years its main attraction the Tropic World included. The organization is managed and subsidized by the city where it is situated, yet the City Council lately expressed that they wanted the zoo to be self-financing by the end of 2011 by finding new source of revenue. In 2009, the operational expenses of the zoo exceeded EUR five million; however, the revenues were far bellow this level. The tariff structure did not change in the last 30 years as pricing always had to be adjusted to the local purchasing power; recent developments and new attractions are only partly priced in at the moment. In the light of the special environment in which Birch House Zoo operates, the director has to initiate key actions that could bring the zoo to the level of breakeven in its operations and make it financially independent.

Ability to create pricing and revenue generating strategies; understanding idiosyncrasies of the management of non-profit organizations regarding this matter; understanding price elasticity issues.

Teaching note.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the experiences of visitors using the strategic experiential modules (SEMs).

In this study, the authors analysed a total of 37 essays written by University of Malaya students who visited the attraction on 23 November 2013. The aim is to explore what constitutes the elements within the SEMs, pertaining to the students’ visit. The results are potentially useful for future Zoo Negara marketing communication initiatives, as well as for the management to remedy the shortfalls which have hindered Zoo Negara from operating as a self-sustaining attraction.

The results confirmed the applicability of all five dimensions of the modules, which include both positive and negative elements. Of the five dimensions, THINK and SENSE were the most frequently expressed.

Though this study offers no theoretical contribution, it does demonstrate the applicability of the Schmitt theory on SEMs and the usefulness of such an application from the managerial perspective.

This paper aims to develop an understanding of the potential for application of facilities management concepts and principles in the context of the “zoo sector”.

The paper is a conceptual one and begins with a narrative designed to provide sufficient background to understanding key issues relevant to the practice of facilities management in zoological and similar institutions, including the implications of conservational/scientific and display imperatives of zoological facilities for facilities management. We then consider how these issues can be worked through in the context of four broad dimensions of facilities management: strategies for the management of stakeholder behaviour (non-human animals, personnel and visitors); building and environmental design (including space usage); safety, security and health; and “miscellaneous” services. The paper concludes by providing a provisional framework for further research into facilities management in the zoo sector.

As a conceptual paper, there are no empirical findings. Conceptually, the paper offers an initial and simple framework for interpreting the possible application of facilities management in zoological and related facilities.

In a search of the two principal journals in the field of facilities management, nothing could be found of direct relevance to the management of facilities in zoological and similar organizations. This paper is thus a singular contribution to the field. Conceptually, the authors attribute neglect of the topic to the distinctive traditions in the study of facilities management, which, at the risk of caricature, emphasise either the pre-eminence of a building and building services approach to facilities management, or an approach which is almost exclusively focused on the “human” dimensions to the discipline.

Strategic management.

MBA, or master students studying management.

This case study is about the Budapest Zoo, which is going to implement a 25bn HUF (US$86.8m) investment which will increase its land area by 50 per cent. With this project one of the most modern zoo buildings in Europe will be opened, called “Biodome”. This, 36-meter-high, 1.7 ha building will provide unique experience for the visitors, but on the other hand, the Biodome will increase the operating costs of the zoo (according to some estimations the costs can rise by 50 per cent). Albeit, the Biodome will open in 2019, some parts of the development will be ready by next year; therefore, the zoo should have a clear strategy in a few months.

The main aim of this case is to demonstrate the importance of positioning in strategy and value creation. It starts with the identification of the most valuable customer segments, after that it helps to describe the value proposition to each segments and finally it suggest a pricing strategy for each part of the zoo.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.

CSS 11: Strategy.