Abstract:
The number of visitors to zoological parks around the world has increased during
the past few decades and it is applicable to Sri Lanka’s National Zoological garden
as well. The visitor count at Dehiwala Zoo has been constantly booming since peace
in 2009. It is also considered as the mostly visited zoological garden in Sri Lanka.
However there have been only a few studies measuring the visitor satisfaction at
zoological gardens, globally and in Sri Lanka. Therefore we set out to investigate and
identify the visitor satisfaction at different park attributes of the National Zoological
Garden and inspect their level of impact. The “mixed methods” was employed for
the study and both questionnaires and interviews were utilized for data gathering
using the convenience sampling technique. Six destination attributes were used in
the study and a set of questions were used to measure the level of visitor satisfaction
of different attributes and most influential elements under each attribute. The
variables developed were based on the items traditionally used in tourism research
on site attributes such as attractions, amenities, accessibility, activities, available
packages and ancillary services. The results of the study show that visitors are
happy with the prevailing amenities, attraction and accessibility while they are
desperate for activities, packages and ancillary services. However, the study further
suggested a few recommendations to enhance the visitor satisfaction and uplift
future visits to the Zoo.
