“We’re in!” calls the man in the midday sun just behind the entrance. There must be a huge rush when someone is so happy to have finally made it in. Not true at all. There are just three people waiting at each of the three open cash registers on this Sunday afternoon in mid-January. Nevertheless, it sometimes takes more than 20 minutes for people to get inside. If you have two or even three annual ticket extensions in front of you, you need patience. Especially at the beginning of the year, many visitors are angry again.
The checkout process, the processing of day or annual tickets – all this is slow and inflexible in Hellabrunn compared to other German zoos, as demand in Cologne, Hamburg or Berlin shows. In Berlin, for example, there are completely new technical and digital structures that enable smooth and therefore fast processes. Everything takes longer in Munich. Annual tickets can only be extended on site, which increases the waiting time, especially in spring. In addition, an annual pass cannot be reapplied for before the validity period has expired. And: According to the zoo, the number of visitors has doubled within a few years, but the number of entrances has remained the same.
One would like to decouple the payment process and the check-in, says zoo spokesman Dennis Späth, but that is not currently planned. It just costs. “We prefer to invest in animal facilities.” Because of the inflexible and non-uniform IT system, it can also happen that visitors are sent away again – for example if someone has forgotten their annual pass: Then it is not possible to check the card in the system and still let the guest in, as it is in other zoos is made. “I have no information that that should be changed,” says Späth.
The extension of an annual ticket – in Cologne it takes “only a few seconds”
In the Cologne Zoo, day and annual tickets are scanned at turnstiles or by employees with handheld devices. According to spokesman Christoph Schütt, there are “no waiting times” during the week. In Berlin, the zoo advertises that visitors with online tickets do not have to stand in line. And since last year there has been a uniform system for Tierpark and Zoo Berlin. The cash registers, the entrance and the online shop are organized in it, says spokeswoman Christiane Reiss. “50 percent of the tickets are currently coming from the online shop”, which relieves the entrances a lot, “because guests with online tickets can go directly to the entrance and bypass the cash registers.” In Munich, the checkout and entrance are one and the same.
In Berlin, day and annual tickets are only briefly scanned, the annual ticket holders have to identify themselves. There are hardly any waiting times, says Reiss. The visitor can extend an annual pass by booking a new one, even before the old one has expired. And if someone has forgotten their annual pass, they can identify themselves and still be allowed in for a processing fee. In Cologne, visitors simply get a replacement ticket in such a case. According to spokesman Schütt, extending an annual pass only takes “a few seconds”.
For the Hagenbeck Zoo in Hamburg, you can buy an annual ticket voucher online at any time, explains spokeswoman Britta Boeck. It is valid for three years and becomes active when the date is entered on the receipt for the first visit. The cards are issued in a separate area – and only briefly shown at the entrance.
Hellabrunn increases prices on February 1st
In times of a pandemic, you always have to factor in a certain waiting time. The employees of the Munich Zoo routinely receive the visitors long before the entrances, ask for proof of vaccination, ID card and putting on the mask. All this is well regulated and meets equally experienced visitors. Queues of people in front of the zoo are also nothing new, they existed before Corona. Sometimes, on hot summer weekends, it only ends at the other end of the Isar Bridge.
After the sharp drop in visitor numbers last year due to Corona, there will probably be significantly more day and annual ticket sales in 2022 – even if the prices increase on February 1st, the day ticket from 15 to 18 euros, the annual ticket from 49 to 59 euros. Whereby the entrance fee remains rather cheap in a national comparison, especially the price for annual tickets. Leipzig (81 euros), Hamburg (140), Cologne (85) and Stuttgart (65) are more expensive, Berlin (55) are now cheaper.
In the near future, visitors to Hellabrunn will be able to see a number of new enclosures, such as the one for the wolves and the one for the lions. But they will probably have to wait in line for a while.