After years of faltering attendance numbers, visitors to the Baton Rouge Zoo is rising, according to stats attached to the agenda for Wednesday’s BREC Board of Commissioners meeting.
Through August, more than 125,000 people have visited the zoo this year—up 6.7% from the same period in 2018. Sparking the growth are year-over increases in general admission and school-related attendance.
Nearly 32,700 adults and teenagers visited the zoo under general admission, nearly 2,000 more than last year. And although overall visits from students are down by roughly 1,000, the number of chaperones that visited doubled. More than 8,500 chaperones visited as part of school trips through August, up from the 4,525 that attended in 2018.
Zoo representatives did not respond to requests for comment before this afternoon’s deadline.
The stats come as BREC gears up to implement a new master plan, released last month, for the zoo and Greenwood Park. The first phase—estimated to cost somewhere between $25 million and $35 million—is set to begin next summer and wrap up by early 2022. That phase addresses renovations for the zoo to regain its accreditation, which it lost in 2018 just days after the BREC commission voted to keep the facility in north Baton Rouge.
Business Report previously reported that attendance at the zoo fell more than 11% between 2012 and 2016, dipping below 200,000 in 2015.
