I don’t know how high a priority this should be, but I’ll engage the question.
Houston Mayor John Whitmire is upset about what he thinks are exorbitant costs to visit the city’s historic zoo, and he is vowing to do all he can to drive down costs for consumers.
He’s challenging zoo officials to cut costs at the attraction, while renewing questions about salaries for top administrators at the zoo.
“I don’t need spin or excuses from the zoo,” Whitmire said of the attraction, where tickets for a family of four can easily exceed $100. “It has become too expensive.”
Zoo officials, for their part, said the attraction is affordable and that few visitors pay the full admission price. A spokesperson also noted that the mayor received 500 free tickets to give residents this past January and that none of them have been redeemed. The zoo gives 17,000 single-day tickets to the mayor and Houston City Council members to hand out as they wish.
“We’re a cherished destination for Houston’s diverse communities who visit our zoo to see our incredible animals and award-winning ecosystem habitat,” said Jackie Wallace, spokesperson for the Houston Zoo.
As the mayor ramped up his criticism, Wallace announced that the zoo would be doubling its free day ticket allotment from 10,000 to 20,000 tickets for its July 2, Aug. 6 and Sept. 10 free days. Tickets are available 7 p.m. June 26.
The mayor, who took office in January, said he’s been concerned about zoo costs for years, back when he served in the Texas Senate.
Whitmire said he did not know he had access to the tickets the zoo said were distributed. He later clarified his statement, saying they were given to his community outreach office and handed out to agencies like the YMCA and churches.
Mary Benton, the mayor’s spokesperson, said the office has given away 150 tickets.
Regardless of having free tickets, Whitmire doubled down on his affordability concerns.
“The zoo’s questionable hand out to city officials does not address the fundamental question,” Whitmire said.
[…]
If a family of four booked full-priced general admission tickets this past Thursday for a Saturday trip, they would have paid $63 to $139 to get in the zoo. Unlike some other zoos, the Houston attraction allows outside food and drinks as long as it isn’t alcohol or in a glass container.
That same family of four would have paid between $28 to $108 for a weekend day at the Dallas Zoo and between $38 to $76 at the Austin Zoo.
Wallace challenged Whitmire’s assertion that the zoo is too expensive. She said only 34% of the zoo’s 2.1 million patrons in 2023 paid full price for admission.
The zoo uses dynamic pricing, so a family of four visiting the Houston Zoo would see different ticket prices depending on the day and the time they wanted to enter the park. That price fluctuates based on the children’s ages.
Wallace said tickets are cheaper the further out you book, especially if you’re booking on a less popular zoo entry day.
While some customers pay full price, there are also many free or cheap ways to visit. Zoo members don’t pay full price, Wallace said, and college students, those coming in on school field trips, and those coming on any one of the zoo’s free days enter the park at no cost. Wallace said those with Lone Star Cards can get $9 children and adult tickets.
Despite the number of zoo patrons not paying full price, Whitmire said the zoo needs to be more affordable.
“It’s a public asset and they have out priced many Houstonians,” he said.
My kids are older now, so it’s been a minute since we were regular Zoo goers. I will say that being able to bring your own food and drink will definitely mitigate the cost of a visit; for what it’s worth, the price comparisons one sees for taking a family of four to an MLB game always includes the cost of concessions, so this is a valid dimension to consider. If one is price conscious, the fact that there are cheaper days and ways to attend will matter – one can avoid paying full price if one wants. Zoo membership is a bigger cost up front, but if you’ve got kids who love the Zoo and want to go often, it’s a big winner. (And pro tip, having a Zoo membership in one city will usually get you in at a discounted price at a zoo in another city. This can be a big help when visiting family elsewhere.)
Is this a sufficient counterargument? I think it’s pretty reasonable, but if your metric is wanting to take a spontaneous trip to the Zoo without planning ahead or being a member, it won’t be of much consolation. I don’t know where this particular interest is coming from – as with a few other items that have been on the Mayor’s to do list, I don’t recall this being an issue during the campaign – but on the surface at least there’s something to it. I do hope this isn’t an opening gambit to threaten the subsidy the city provides the Zoo, which isn’t all that much and which would (according to the Zoo) shut down a lot of the Zoo’s ability to provide lower-cost access. We’ll see if this is a recurring issue or just a one time story.
On a side note, because I thought it was cool, the Zoo recently announced that one of its Asian elephants had “been given the first-ever dose of an mRNA vaccine created by virologists at Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) to prevent the deadly elephant endotheliotropic herpesvirus (EEHV) 1A—a devastating viral disease in Asian elephants worldwide.” I’m sure nobody anywhere will have any weird thoughts about that.
The funny thing is that the first Mayor Whitmire is the person who started an admission cost for the Zoo. It used to be free.
What about the pools, they are hardly open any more. I’ve even offered to pay for a pass if the pools were open, and I’ve even asked to have grown up swim time in the evenings, and, I’m not sure of the law, but to have the pools without the lifeguards. As it is, since 2020, the pools open later, all of them close by 7PM, and each neighborhood pool is only open two or three days per week. Houston passed a Children’s Outdoor Bill of Rights, but isn’t living up to it.
More John Whitmire non-sensical bullshit. The City of Houston gave up control of the Houston Zoo 22 years ago. Regardless of any City subsidy, who is he to tell the non-profit Houston Zoo corporation how much they can charge for admission or how much they can pay Zoo Administrators ?
Is this all he has to do ? SMF’inH…
Wow, I remwmber when the zoo was free.
The Austin Zoo is absolutely not a basis for comparison. It is a rescue zoo, heavy on things that people think will make good pets until they grow up. So, lots of coatamundis and lemurs and some tigers. Not much else.
Yeah, this whole conversation is weird. Austin and Dallas are not really good comparisons to the size/scope of the Houston Zoo. My wife loves zoos and we’ve been a ton across the country (and even a few outside), and admission price at the Houston Zoo is pretty on-par for similar ones elsewhere.
Whitmire is Houston’s version of Muad’Dib, with his reed bending wherever the (daily) wind takes it.
Comparing the Houston and Austin zoos is apples and oranges; the Chron should know better.
The Austin Zoo is a rescue facility with about 300 animals, 100 species, and fewer than 250,000 visitors per year. It’s a member of the AZA, an accreditation body for smaller facilities, with relaxed requirements that are often criticized.
The Houston Zoo is a major conservation center with over 6,000 animals, 900 species, and 2 million annual visitors. It’s a member of the ZAA, which hold its members to the highest standards.
$100 for a family of 4 to attend the zoo is not at all affordable and its definitely not something you can visit spontaneously. They should just keep things simple and make all the tickets the same price, greatly reduced and cut out the reservation system.