We have a range of FREE sessions available!
Our sessions fill up quickly, so please book early to avoid disappointment.
Available Business & Tourism Sessions
Click on an education session for more detail including curriculum links
All of our standard Business & Tourism Sessions cover until the end of the 2019, and jump to the 2022 fiscal year, reflecting normal operating conditions, staffing, admission, etc. and do not include details of the business and financial impacts of Covid-19. If you require information on zoo operations during 2020-21, please book the ‘Covid Buisness Impacts’ session.
Please be aware, that although sessions are FREE, Colchester Zoo reserves the right to charge a £20 fee educational sessions which are booked but not attended.
Detailed Session Descriptions:
Becoming A Charity – Colchester Zoological Society KS4 and Higher
New for Summer Term 2025
From 1st January 2025, the private limited business Colchester Zoo Ltd. will become the registered charity Colchester Zoological Society.
This brand new session will explore the business, financial and wider implications of this change, and how making this change will allow us to better meet our mission statement and align with our values.
More details coming soon!
This session can be booked now for visits taking place from the 22nd of April 2025
Covid Business Impacts – KS3 and higher
This session provides details of how Colchester Zoo operated during 2020 and 2021. It provides an overview of Colchester Zoo as a visitor attraction and our usual operating costs and income and a comparison of how these changes over the pandemic.
Please note that this session focuses on 2020 and 2021 specifically. If you are interested in how Colchester Zoo normally operates, please book the standard Zoo as a Business Talk.
Click for curriculum topics covered
- Define Colchester Zoo’s usual operational costs
- Understand how these usual operational costs were reduced
- Describe Colchester Zoo’s usual source of income
- Understand how these sources of income changed
Finance Talk – KS4 and higher
After an introduction to Colchester Zoo’s finance objectives, costs and revenue are examined. A full analysis using graphs, charts, and figures shows the difference in profits on low visitor days compared to high visitor days. The difficulties of a tourist attraction trying to balance those varying visitor numbers while remaining profitable are then explored with reference to strategies used to encourage visitors.
Click for curriculum topics covered
- Understand the mission and value of Colchester Zoo
- Understand the financial objectives of Colchester Zoo
- Fixed and variable cost breakdown
- Direct and indirect cost breakdown
- Understand what steps we take to minimise our costs
- Explain the sources of income and how attendance is directly linked to revenue
- Understand the factors affecting attendance and what we do to compensate
- Break-even chart analysis and comparison of high and low visitor days
- Calculations of net profit margins comparing high and low visitor days
- Understand a variety of pricing strategies used, and what the aim of each is
- (KS5+ only) PEST analysis of Colchester Zoo to anticipate future sales
- (KS5+ only) Colchester Zoo’s Economic Impact, both locally and regionally
Marketing Talk – KS3 and higher
Students will learn what marketing is, and how we successfully market products at Colchester Zoo. The talk covers a wide range of topics including: who our target customers are, who our competitors are, various levels of products, SWOT analysis, marketing strategies, product lifecycles, and advertising. For lower level talks, all of these concepts are tied back into the marketing mix terms of price, place, product, and promotion.
Click for curriculum topics covered
- Understand the role and mission of Colchester Zoo
- Explain why marketing is essential to Colchester Zoo’s mission
- Describe the target audience of Colchester Zoo
- Understand why knowing the target audience is essential to marketing
- Relate Colchester Zoo’s marketing methods to the marketing mix in terms of product, place, price and promotion
- Understand the SWOT analysis of Colchester Zoo
- Define marketing strategies with reference to price and product life cycles
- Describe advertising methods used by Colchester Zoo
Q & A Session – KS3 and higher
Please note this session is 45 minutes for a maximum of 50 students.
This session is a bookable timeslot for your students to ask Colchester Zoo staff questions. Zoo staff can answer questions on a wide range of topics including how we use science at Colchester Zoo, how we meet the needs of our customers, health and safety concerns of a zoo, case study examples of our conservation projects, or a focus on any other topic.
This session is ideal for students which are required to gather specific information for completing mock assessment, portfolios, workbooks, etc.
Students attending this session MUST come prepared with a list of question to ask the speaker.
Zoo as a Business – KS3 and higher
This session is designed to give students an overview of Colchester Zoo as a visitor attraction. It covers a wide range of topics including: running costs, competition, staffing and job roles, our customers, customer service, market research, our products, marketing strategies, and advertising. For lower level talks, this session provides an introduction to business concepts and terminology as they relate to Colchester Zoo.
Please be aware, this session covers information and figures from the last calendar year. It will be updated in early 2025 with information on how the zoo operated as a business in 2024. From 1st January 2025 the zoo will become a charity, while this has a large impact on how the zoo will operate, it will not be covered in detail in the ‘Zoo as a Business Talk’. Information and impacts of the change to the charity will be available in our new ‘Becoming a Charity’ talk which will be available to book for visits from Summer Term 2025.
Click for curriculum topics covered
- Understand the role and mission of Colchester Zoo
- Define running costs in terms of what Colchester Zoo spends money on
- Describe job roles and responsibilities across Colchester Zoo’s 12 departments
- Understand the typical customer in terms of distance travelled, customer type, numbers, and seasonal attendance
- Describe methods used by Colchester Zoo to ensure customer satisfaction
- Understand the importance of surveys including: visitor flow analysis, dwell time analysis and animal visibility surveys
- Describe Colchester Zoo’s products
- Define marketing strategies with reference to price and product life cycles
- Describe advertising methods used by Colchester Zoo
