Guests are your income. They pay for tickets, buy food, drinks and souvenirs, and donate. They also have needs, opinions and, in Planet Zoo 2, dietary requirements.
Guest needs
The guest feedback panel tracks:
- Hunger and thirst: food and drink shops within reasonable walking distance.
- Energy: benches and picnic tables. Long walks and stairs drain it.
- Toilet: toilet blocks. Expanding a zoo without expanding the "plumbing" is the classic mistake.
- Happiness: scenery, animal viewing, crowding and prices.
Dietary requirements
Individual guests have dietary restrictions. A guest card may say they can eat items containing meat, dairy, wheat or sugar, and others can't. A zoo with only burger stands leaves some guests hungry no matter how many stands you build. Mix food types: a meat stand, a vegetarian-friendly option, a bakery, a dessert stand.
Shops and stalls
| Type | Examples | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Food | Chief Beef, Hot Dog Squad, Bernie's Bakery, Moon Jelly Donuts, Gelato Bros, cakes, pizza, kids' meals | Spread food types for dietary needs |
| Drinks | Gulpee, Sodalightful, Pip Shop (smoothies), milkshakes, Slush Hour | Gulpee is consistently popular |
| Gift | Trunk of Trinkets, Nature's Keepers (plush toys), Looney Balloons, hat shop | Guests walk around with your balloons |
| Adoption | Adoption pack stall | Can lose money if it's the only shop nearby |
| Info | Information centre / information desk | Sells umbrellas when it rains |
| Money | ATM | Broke guests can't buy anything |
Shop tips:
- Shops come as full buildings, large/small blueprints, or counters you can build your own stall around. Shops can hide their walls, so an open-air stall with a thatch canopy is easy.
- Guests can use a shop even if its front isn't perfectly path-connected, but give it a clean approach anyway.
- Don't put shops or vending machines in the main path flow. Tuck them into side bays so queues don't block traffic.
- Trained vendors earn more.
- "Shop is losing money": check for an ATM, nearby competition, pricing, and whether guests actually pass by.
Toilets, benches and bins
- Put a toilet block at the entrance and at the far end of every long loop.
- You can charge for toilets. A small fee is fine.
- Benches every so often along paths, with picnic tables and umbrellas near food.
- A bin next to every bench and a recycling bin next to every bin. Recycling bins count toward sustainability.
- Caretakers empty bins; litter everywhere means you need more of them.
Crowding and paths
Busy zoos jam up. Signs of trouble: guests bunched at the gate, "too crowded" building warnings, satisfaction dropping for no obvious reason.
- A 4 m path is often too narrow for a main route. Use wide plazas at entrances and junctions.
- Move shops and photo spots off the main line.
- Use guest barriers (forbid walking) and curbs (discourage walking) to stop guests clipping into glass or standing on path edges.
- Ride transport (trains, boats) helps spread guests across a big zoo.
Protesters and inspections
- Protesters appear when welfare is low or after losing a husbandry star. Some protest the zoo itself ("release the animals!"). Fix the welfare problem and they leave.
- Zoo inspections happen periodically. Litter, broken facilities and unhappy animals all count against you.
Guest thoughts
Read guest thoughts often. They're blunt: "zoo tickets are underpriced", "this place has great scenery", "seeing a West Indian manatee clearly was awesome". They're the quickest way to tune prices and decide where to add viewing areas.
