Why are most of the Guests in the Entrance-Area all the time?

[Firestar97]

I just noticed that almost all of my Guests are near the Entrance all the Time. Most of them are for some reason in front of the Western Adventure -Enclosure (with Pronghorns and Bisons). Why do so many People not want to see Tigers, Pandas, Elephants, Gorillas and many other interesting Animals?
A few hundred of them are moving to the Orangutan-House and then some smaller Groups are walking to the left Side with Giant Pandas and Wolves. Before the last Update, there were a lot of Guests near the other Animals.
Does anyone have a Tip how I can get them to move to other Locations in the Zoo?

 

[Jaggid Edje]

The visitors enter the zoo and the game generates a list of what they want to see and my understanding is that it prioritizes the most recently added habitats (i.e. those are more popular). Click some guests at the entrance and look at both what they are interested in seeing in terms of animals, and also what they are currently headed towards.

Both of those pieces of information should give you a general idea of why they are there and should be able to help you figure out what to do to change it.

Scenery helps make things attractive to guests, and (unfortunately) shops are a big draw as well. If you want an area of your zoo that is less populated to attract more visitors you need to put down shops along the way at pretty regular intervals (every 40 to 50m works for me) and NOT use food courts. Spread the food and drink and souvenirs around and use them like bread crumbs to draw people through the zoo. It's unfortunate that the game works this way, but it does.
I had a Nyala habitat in my current zoo that was not getting any visitors (it was off the main paths a bit on a side path)..I added a drink shop right next to it and it has been a popular habitat ever since. (This was actually intentional, I didn't want it to be popular until I got 1-way glass).

I had an idea today in my zoo that I haven't tried yet. Modifying an old habitat by removing the gate and re-adding it could put it back to the top of the list in terms of 'newness". Of course I'd need to re-add it to my work zones, but it's a small price to pay if it revitalizes old areas of the zoo. I'm not sure if the age of the habitat is what makes them appealing, or if it's the newness of the animal itself...going to test to see at some point.

As far as the popularity of your bisons and pronghorns, it seems to me that any habitat with multiple types of animals is really popular...even when they are older. I use that to my advantage as well by spreading the multi-species habitats throughout the zoo and putting them at longer distances from the entrance so that it forces folks to walk through the zoo to get to them and gets activity at all the shops and habitats in between.
In my current zoo, I have 3 really popular habitats like that and each is at a different compass point. So if the entrance was "south", I have my African Safari 1 (Ostrich, Zebra, Giraffe, Sable Antelope( to the far east, my African safari 2 (Thomson's, Springbok, Buffalo and Wildebeast) and Little India (elephant, rhino and peafowl) to the far west and Planet Lemur to the far north. The whole rest of the zoo is enveloped by the radius made by drawing a circle to connect all of them.

 

[Firestar97]

I think its not because it is a Enclosure with multiple Species. Yesterday I put new Animals in my Elephant-Enclosure because I needed to get temporarily rid of them and still almost no Guests there. There are African Elephants, Wildebeest, Zebras and a male Asian Elephant from one of my other Zoos in the Enclosure. Before the Update it was really popular. Also I've built a new Enclosure yesterday but most of the Guests still walk only to the left Side if they even decide to walk further away from the Pronghorns and Bisons

 

[Moosegun]

Routing guests can be very complex, it is something I focus on right from the start by making sure my zoos have room to add rides near the entrance, purely with the goal of getting my guests away from the exit.

 

[Jaggid Edje]

I think its not because it is a Enclosure with multiple Species. Yesterday I put new Animals in my Elephant-Enclosure because I needed to get temporarily rid of them and still almost no Guests there. There are African Elephants, Wildebeest, Zebras and a male Asian Elephant from one of my other Zoos in the Enclosure. Before the Update it was really popular. Also I've built a new Enclosure yesterday but most of the Guests still walk only to the left Side if they even decide to walk further away from the Pronghorns and Bisons

That's odd, my multi-species habitat that is the oldest is still a big draw. Not as big as the newest habitats, but still quite busy. Do you have gaps in terms of things that attract visitors between that area and the entrance. You put a lot of boring things, or nothing at all, in between the entrance and a place that 'should' be popular, it won't get a lot of visitors. You need to design everything along the way in an enticing way, as I indicated earlier. Visitors are like ferrets, they need to see the "oh shiny" close at hand to get them to move that way.

Just as an example, I built a giant panda habitat in my last zoo that I thought would be really popular and it wasn't getting any visitors at all. But, the most direct path to it was along a rather long pathway bordering another habitat that was massive. Although that other habitat was popular, visitors never went all the way to the far end, near the pandas so they never got close enough to the pandas to be attracted. I altered the habitat to make room along the pathway to add some drink, food and souvenir shops (spaced out along it) and once I was done, the pandas started to get attention.

Edit to add: It also matters what you've most recently added if you're still working on your zoo. Because of how the newest stuff attracts people if you built out several new habitats all in one direction, that's going to be like a magnet pulling most of your new visitors in that direction. It's why I build in sort of an outward spiral pattern, to make sure guests keep getting spread in all directions from the main entrance. If you consider the zoo entrance as "south", what I basically do is, if my last new habitat was to the west, then the next one will be north, and the one after that east, rinse repeat. Still going to test the theory that renovating habitats (including replacing the keeper gate) in old areas of the zoo might revitalize them as well.

 

[bhutch]

Thanks for all the great info, guys! It's really helpful. Has anyone tested not putting contiguous guest walking paths in and connecting exhibit "hubs" with rides only? I had the thought of setting up a zoo to force people to travel through it in the order I wanted--e.g., you can walk into the zoo for the first part of it, but to see the next big thing you take a 1-way train to the next hub, and the only way to get round to the exit would be to take the next train to the next part, and so on in a circle back to the entrance. I'm curious if it'd work. If someone's already tried it, I'd love to hear about it.

My big concern is that the train rides only (no walking paths between hubs) might be offputting enough that even the draw of new/exciting exhibits wouldn't be enough without sprinkling in the shops/drinks/food every so often to keep them coming (since you can't really do that on a ride, lol.)

 

[Jaggid Edje]

Not all visitors will want to ride the train, so you'll limit what those visitors will be able to access. I don't know that anyone has tested having areas ONLY accessible by transport, but I saw a post from someone who put habitats so remote that transport was the only good option to get to them and he indicated that no one was going out there. His transport was bare bones though, and scenery does matter to get people onto your rides, so maybe it would have been more successful with more scenery.

I just added a monorail to my current franchise zoo and I will say that people seem to be pretty inclined to get on it in order to get to the more remote habitats that are also the most popular animals in the zoo. I do that on purpose, put those biggest draws at farthest points out in the zoo, and it's ended up working in my favor as this is the first time I've had a zoo that is making good profits selling ride tickets. The most popular destination of the 6 stations though is the one that exits into a small food court (2 drink shops, a food shop and a souvenir shop)....which makes me wonder if the combined hippo/flamingo habitat across the way is what is drawing them or the appeal of the food and drink.