In their latest effort to stay attractive to tourists, Chiang Mai Zoo has announced that it will be developing a new 5 rai area for a new project focusing on animals that no longer exist. This is not another misguided Thai attempt at second-guessing the desires of tourists. The new attraction is to be called Adventure Zoo, and it will present the prehistoric period of the dinosaurs.
Thanaphat Pongpamorn, the director of Chiang Mai Zoo, made the announcement after the birthday party for the zoo’s main star, Lin Hui, a female panda. Development will start around the end of October, though its completion date has yet to be estimated.
Other marketing tactics to be initiated by the zoo to try and woo more visitors includes the promotion of its more exotic residents: a Cape fur seal, Humboldt penguins, and a pair of pandas given to the zoo by China. Even more exotic is Kali, the Indian rhino given to His Majesty King Bhumibol in 1986 by the former King of Nepal. The rhino will be moving to Chiang Mai’s zoo and be promoted as “Amazing Only One in Thailand.†The zoo also plans to work a marketing scheme named the “Seven Wonders†which will have the soon-to-be-opened aquarium complex as its star.