By: Lim Wei Chean

WINDS of change are blowing through the Singapore Zoo, Night Safari and Jurong BirdPark.

The new chairman of Wildlife Reserves Singapore (WRS), Claire Chiang, wants the three wildlife attractions to pull in more than just the usual families and students on school trips.

She wants courting couples to go there on dates.

She wants corporate bigwigs discussing their latest business strategies and networking there.

And she wants school children to go there with their friends - just for fun.

She wants more people visiting the three parks, period.

The 57-year-old took over the helm of Wildlife Reserves Singapore from her predecessor Robert Kwan in April, just four months after WRS signed on Ms Fanny Lai as group chief executive officer.

Ms Lai's very designation signals another change - that of the integration of the three parks into one corporate entity, so they can be marketed and run more efficiently.

The third change afoot is in the plan to introduce a new attraction.

The group is exploring the opening of a fourth attraction in the WRS stable, a freshwater themed attraction. An announcement is expected by August.

Ms Chiang told The Straits Times that she had no doubt the three parks were already world-class attractions, but she wants them to be more than just average zoos.

She will be visiting animal parks abroad to gather fresh ideas.

She has had some ideas from her eldest son, who is studying in New York. The fact that the city's Central Park is a magnet for New Yorkers of all ages and backgrounds changed his perception of what a park could be.

Besides appealing to dating couples, he suggested that the parks here could hold events for young adults to mingle and perhaps even find a date.

It will be no walk in the park - pun unintended - to grow visitor numbers, because the three parks are already popular and profitable attractions.

Last year, Jurong BirdPark received 830,000 visitors; the Singapore Zoo pulled in 1.5 million visitors, and the Night Safari, 1.1 million.

Their combined turnover: $77 million.

In the just-ended financial year, the three parks expect to tot up $88 million in revenue. Profits make up a fifth of that.

Ms Chiang, a former Nominated Member of Parliament and senior vice-president of luxury hotel chain Banyan Tree, said she expects to play an active part to secure new business from among fresh market niches.

Already, the three parks have been venues for about 50 weddings a year for the last three years. They hope to improve on that.

Ms Chiang said, for example, the parks could be open at 7am daily instead of from 8.30am, so retirees can take their morning walks or do their exercises there, and round this off with breakfast.

At the tail end of the day, the zoo and bird park could stay open past 7pm, perhaps so the business suits can network over sundown cocktails.

Her vision is for the parks 'to be world-class integrated leisure attractions, providing excellent exhibits of animals and birds, presented in their natural environment, for the purpose of conservation, edutainment and research'.

She also plans to push through the integration of the three parks, which Ms Lai launched earlier this year.

The Night Safari and Zoo had been run as one operation; the bird park joined the corporate structure only in January.

A legacy of their separateness: their separate ticketing and membership systems.

Starting this month, with the mid-year school holidays, WRS introduced the 3-in-1 Park Hopper ticket, which buys entry to all three parks once within a month at $40 for adults and $20 for children under 13.

WRS has also introduced the 'Wildlife Unlimited Plus' family memberships at $430, which will give a family of two adults and three children unlimited entry to all three attractions. Families who sign up between now and Sept 30 pay $380.

Integrating the three parks also means less wastage and overlap of jobs - from the ordering of stationery to buying of advertisements or making sales calls.

Planning for programmes and marketing campaigns will also be done more seamlessly with all three parks accounted for in one exercise, and there will be more efforts at joint programming.

This article was first published in The Straits Times on Jun 11, 2008

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