West Midland Safari Park: Rhino lodges on the way as cheetah rooms sell-out in no time
Coronavirus has meant a tough few years for attractions across the region - but West Midlands Safari Park is bouncing back and expanding at speed.
Eight lodges next to elephants and cheetahs opened last year and now accommodation is being built where people can stay near giraffes and rhinos as the safari park near Bewdley seeks to increase its offer - and income.
The existing lodges, which mimick African lodges, have proved so popular that they are sold out until next winter despite costing at least £170 per adult per night.
Six offer the only overnight accommodation experience with elephants in the UK, while the other two are next to the cheetahs, also the only experience of its kind in the country.
It comes two years after the park was bought by a major French leisure parks group which has 14 other attractions across Europe.
In the upcoming giraffe lodges, guests will be able to come eye-to-eye with the park’s tower of eight giraffes from the balcony on the first floor.
Rochelle Zare, head of marketing at the zoo, said: "From the plans, they are going to be incredible and will provide real escapism for the guests.
"As part of it, we wanted to provide investment for animal facilities, the priority for us is always to improve animal houses, and introducing the lodges has provided an extra financial stream to help with this.
"We have been able to build a new elephant house, with 24-hour access to indoor and outdoor enrichment areas.
"Work started last October and will be completed in April."
As well as the new accommodation and habitats for the animals, the park will also be installing paths so that day guests can go to see the giraffes and African elephants on foot for the first time since the park opened in 1973.
And the changes don't stop there, as the park will soon apply for planning permission for tiger lodges to be built for the end of the summer.
Rochelle added: "We would build two tiger lodges which would enable us to upgrade animal housing for the tigers in our collection.
"Moving forward, we are seeing a great success with the lodges, people are really excited about them.
"The reaction is huge and really positive, so we want to try and improve and invest back into our animal areas.
"There are talks on whether to look at lodges for the other species we have and we are hoping to build on that and expand our portfolio."
Meanwhile red panda are now part of the wildlife that call West Midland Safari Park home for the first time.
The new exhibit is in the park’s walk-through Discovery Trail for Safari Park guests, and features newly-renovated cottages which look out into the red panda habitat for people staying overnight.
Named ‘Red Panda Retreat’, the exhibition is home to the new home of a female red panda named Mei Lin, born in 2020.
It is hoped she will be joined by a male in the next couple of months, as the park looks to to contribute to European breeding programmes.
The positive reaction to the lodges and new exhibitions has been warmly welcomed by the park, which like so many attractions, has had a difficult time due to the pandemic.
Rochelle said: "It was a challenging time during the pandemic, we had to close the park, but still had to care every day for the animals.
"But we have overcome that and have seen a lot of success off the back of it.
"We welcomed a lot of visitors last year which had helped us make up for the loss.
"We are proud we maintained our staff and reopened as normal when we could.
"There was a huge appetite from people to go out and enjoy themselves when they could after being locked away."
