InterPark talks to Laurence Smith, owner of Drusillas Park in the UK.

InterPark: What initially inspired you to buy Drusillas Park? And why an animal based attraction?
LS: We had a bit of a menagerie at home – pony, donkey, sheep, goats, chickens, ducks and pigs, so an animal-orientated attraction was definitely a preference, although by no means essential. We also looked at the Hop Farm in Kent but at the time it was owned by Whitbread and we couldn't get through their bureaucracy very easily. Then we looked at a museum dealing with memorabilia from the last 100 years but once we got talking to Drusillas we were hooked. We had been to the park with our own three children so had seen it from a visitors' point of view and knew it was a solid attraction.

IP: What do you feel your experience in business generally brought to Drusillas that was perhaps previously lacking?
LS: I think there were four main things: one, better long term strategic planning – one of the first things we did was to involve all our staff in a new five- year strategic plan; two, we formed a management team and departmentalised the business in a much more focused way with separate heads in finance, operations, zoo, estate, catering, marketing and retail; three, we completely revamped the corporate image; and four, we established a way of working and attention to detail that was results driven.

IP: What were some of the main challenges you faced at the outset?
LS: The main challenge initially was to win the staff over having had no experience of running a zoo or a visitor attraction. Staff are naturally sceptical when new people take over a business, but forming a new management team early on and working with all levels of staff on a five-year plan definitely helped the situation. But inevitably there were some casualties along the way – people who didn't like our style or couldn't cope with the change in pace. The other main challenge was simply taking over a visitor attraction on May 24 (just before the school half term) with no previous experience. Once we got over the initial shock of the first summer period we managed pretty well and soon recognised that we had acquired some very good staff who had helped us through.

IP: What were the main projects you undertook when you first 'moved in'?
LS: There were several, although given our time again I think we would probably wait 12 months before starting any new projects. Our first animal project was a walk-through bat enclosure, which has proved a great success (Rodrigues fruit bats are an endangered species and one of the rarest bats in the world). We also decided to completely revamp the restaurant and rebrand it as Explorer's Café Restaurant – that went well too, although it was more expensive than we first anticipated.

IP: What else did your initial five-year development plan include?
LS: There were lots of projects and goals that we wanted to achieve, including financial targets, such as increasing visitor numbers, increasing the secondary spend, eliminating the loss making areas (book shop, pottery and a 'rainforest' shop) and above all to achieve profits in line with our budget. Other goals included retaining Investors in People and winning the South of England Tourist Attraction of the Year Award (achieved in 2000 and in 2011). There were minor but important other goals such as having proper market research feedback, making better use of our database, improving our offer to schools, improving our stock control, improving the range of events and to chop those that were not relevant or successful. We also set out specific projects that included a review of our leisure offering and underutilised areas that could be developed. In the zoo we needed to change the structure and set out some key expectations of our keeping staff. And at the same time we joined BIAZA and later on EAZA and took a much more proactive stance towards conservation. The list went on and on…

IP: How important was it for you to build a strong management team at the park and what benefits has doing so had over the years?
LS: As I've said earlier, this was our starting point and vitally important. We inherited several good people and we gave them a lot more responsibility as well as detailed financial reports and worked closely with them. It worked for me when I was building a recruitment business and it's worked very well at Drusillas – we currently have a very strong management team and we all work together with set common goals and objectives – pretty obvious and simple stuff really.

IP: Your visitor demographic is families with young children. Why did you specifically decide to target this group?
LS: Drusillas was always an attraction aimed at families with young children and we simply continued with that. Back in the 1960s the Drusillas slogan was something like 'A Child's First Zoo'.

IP: Educational elements are clearly important at the park. Can you provide an overview of these and some of the things you have done to develop the educational side of the operation?
LS: Education of children was always important but when we acquired the business we felt it needed a bit of a boost so we started by setting up a full time education team, whereas in the past education had borrowed odd people from other departments to 'help out.' But we also reviewed the whole park and started with renewing all the animal signs so that they fitted into our new corporate identity and offered simple, child friendly information. We also used outside consultants to put in new fun interactives that were educational – one of the first was 'Where in the World?' which was done by Farmer Studios.

IP: The animal attractions are obviously the most important element of Drusillas, but what other attractions and facilities are on offer?
LS: We signed a deal with Hit Entertainment to bring Thomas the Tank Engine to the Park in 2007, and he has been immensely popular. We have also used Western Log to revamp play areas such as Go Wild! and Go Bananas! and last year Meticulous designed an interactive new maze for us called Eden's Eye.

IP: What were attendance levels like when you first took over the park and what are they today?
LS: We've probably added nearly 100,000 visitors since we took over in 1997 and currently have between 360,000-380,000 visitors each year.

IP: What are some of the challenges you face as operators of an animal-based attraction, perhaps relating to legislation, health and safety and other areas?
LS: They are many and varied from the obvious ones like foot and mouth disease (which affected us in 2001) to scares about bird flu and E. Coli. But we work to very high standards throughout the zoo and ensure we do things 'by the book' so we have never had any major issues. But it's important to create a culture of excellence among your staff and to continually insist on high standards and an attention to detail.

IP: What would you say has been your greatest achievement since taking over at Drusillas?
LS: Improving every aspect of the park for the benefit of the visitors and making the business profitable year in year out, regardless of the weather! In fact the correlation is a very strong one, perhaps not surprisingly.

IP: What are your plans for the future?
LS: We are working on a new project at the moment which we hope will be a big attraction in 2013 and beyond and we've also looked for other properties to acquire – but so far without success.