What the 2026 Benchmark Survey Reveals About the Future of Zoos and Wildlife Attractions

The first UK Zoo & Wildlife Attraction Benchmark Survey, conducted in early 2026, gathered insights from 31 organisations across the sector. This comprehensive report offers a detailed snapshot of strategies, operations, visitor engagement, revenue models, digital capabilities, and future outlooks. It reveals a sector in transition, ambitious and mission-driven, yet facing increasingly complex, expensive, and demanding operational environments. This document highlights key themes shaping the sector in 2026 and beyond, demonstrating its ongoing evolution despite significant pressures.

Financial Pressures Shape Strategic Decisions

A clear message from the survey is that financial pressure now influences nearly every strategic decision. The majority of respondents cited rising wage costs, energy prices, and weather volatility as their biggest operational challenges. This reflects the inherent nature of wildlife attractions, which are labour-intensive, estate-heavy, and highly seasonal. Essential costs such as animal care, welfare standards, and regulatory obligations are difficult to reduce. Consequently, organisations are being compelled to rethink financial sustainability while continuing their core missions of conservation, education, and public engagement.

The survey indicates a gradual shift from an admissions-centric model towards one reliant on diversified revenue streams, enhanced visitor loyalty, and more efficient operations.

Revenue Per Visitor: A New Focus

A significant finding is the intense focus on revenue per visitor. Almost all respondents identified increasing spend per head as either critical or very important in 2026. This signals a fundamental change in mindset. For many attractions, growing visitor numbers alone is no longer a realistic goal due to limitations like catchment size, site capacity, weather exposure, and market conditions.

As a result, organisations are scrutinising the structure of the visitor experience. Memberships, food and beverage, retail, seasonal events, paid experiences, and premium encounters are increasingly vital components of the commercial model. This shift also explains the heightened attention on the quality of the visitor journey: longer dwell times, better information, and fewer frustrations encourage greater spend and repeat visits.

Addressing Visitor Journey Friction

When asked about major problems in the current visitor experience, several themes emerged repeatedly:

• Weather resilience and indoor capacity (most common, highlighting vulnerability of outdoor attractions).
• Food and beverage queues.
• Navigation across large sites.
• Access to real-time information.

These seemingly minor operational details have direct commercial implications, reducing dwell time, suppressing secondary spend, and impacting repeat visits. Modern visitors compare all leisure experiences, not just those within the zoo sector. Expectations for convenience, communication, and experience quality have risen across the entire visitor economy. Improving the visitor journey is no longer just about guest satisfaction; it is now central to financial performance.

Digital Capabilities: Progress and Barriers

Most organisations reported having core digital systems in place, including ticketing, email marketing, and point-of-sale platforms. However, few described their systems as fully integrated. Many characterised their digital capability as functional but limited, with only a small number having fully connected systems across the visitor lifecycle.

Disconnected systems hinder understanding visitor behaviour, personalising communication, fostering loyalty, and making informed decisions. The sector does not lack belief in digital, seeing platforms as business-critical. The challenges are practical rather than ideological, with major barriers cited as:

• Limited internal skills.
• Lack of time.
• Cost.
• Integration complexity.

Organisations grasp the value of digital but often struggle with implementation within existing resources.

Memberships, Events, and Experiences as Core Revenue

Diversified income is a growing theme. Membership schemes are increasingly significant for some attractions, though their dependence varies widely. Events and paid experiences are transitioning from optional extras to strategic priorities. Many respondents consider seasonal events important or core to their commercial plans, particularly for extending seasons, encouraging repeat visits, and increasing per-visitor spend.

However, the primary barrier to growth in this area is not demand, but capacity. Staffing, operational complexity, animal welfare considerations, and site constraints limit the pace at which attractions can expand experiences. This reinforces a recurring theme: the sector often knows its desired actions but lacks the time, budget, or internal resources to execute them at the desired speed.

Operational Capacity as a Strategic Constraint

When asked about factors limiting their 2026 plans, respondents most frequently pointed to time, competing priorities, and insufficient capital investment. This highlights that the sector is not short of ideas, ambition, or awareness; rather, the limiting factor is the ability to execute. Many organisations juggle daily operational demands with long-term goals such as visitor experience enhancement, commercial growth, digital transformation, and impact reporting. Progress tends to be incremental rather than transformational. Some attractions will advance quickly where leadership, funding, and systems permit, while others will adopt a more gradual approach, focusing on practical improvements over large-scale change.

Rising Expectations for Impact and Accountability

Zoos and wildlife attractions are judged on more than just visitor numbers. There is growing pressure to demonstrate conservation outcomes, educational value, accessibility, sustainability, and community benefits. The strongest pressure is to evidence conservation impact, followed by education outcomes, welfare standards, and social value. This reflects the sector's unique position at the intersection of public leisure, conservation, science, and education. As expectations rise, organisations must prove they not only attract visitors but also deliver meaningful outcomes, adding another layer of complexity to an already demanding operating model.

The Outlook for 2026 and Beyond

The survey results suggest the sector is entering a period of pragmatic transformation. While attendance growth remains important, it is no longer the sole measure of success. Revenue diversification, visitor loyalty, operational efficiency, and better data utilisation are becoming more critical. Several shifts are likely to define the coming years:

• Moving from volume to value, with a greater focus on spend per head and repeat visits.
• Transitioning from static operations to more dynamic visitor management.
• Changing from disconnected systems to joined-up insight.
• Shifting from assumed impact to evidenced impact.

These changes will be gradual. Organisations that adapt most successfully will likely be those capable of making steady improvements across commercial, operational, and digital performance while upholding their core mission.

Why This Benchmark Matters

The intention is for this survey to become an annual benchmark, building a clearer picture over time of how the zoo and wildlife attraction sector continues to evolve, with continued industry support.