Wildlands Zoo in Emmen must get rid of its heavy debt burden, or at least the costs thereof, in order to be able to invest sufficiently in the long term. This is what interim director Erik van Engelen says on the eve of his departure.
Recently alderman Jisse Otter (Wakker Emmen) expressed great concern about the lack of money at Wildlands for innovations. He is therefore investigating whether the municipality can adjust the loan of millions to the park with more favorable conditions.
Van Engelen shares the concerns. The zoo was set up in 2016 with the intention of investing every year, according to the pattern: a few years of smaller investments and once every three to four years a big hit, in the form of an appealing new animal species or attraction.
Those big hits are missing from the ten-year plan that Van Engelen recently presented.
Shadow plan
However, another plan has been made. A kind of shadow plan, in case there was more money, with new animal enclosures on the five hectares of space that are still available within Wildlands. Van Engelen does not want to say which animals these are.
“In view of our dream plans, I am very happy that the municipality is going to look at an adjustment of the loan conditions. With a lower interest rate or a different repayment schedule, we get more investment power. The question is also whether it is realistic for us to pay off the loan in full. It could be, but then we can’t invest enough.”
The municipality has owned Wildlands since 2019, which attracted 1.3 million visitors in its opening year, but then disappointed with disappointing visitor numbers and millions in losses. The municipality avoided bankruptcy by taking over the loans on more favorable terms. Of the 63 million euros, Wildlands still has to repay 61.6 million euros. The repayment term is 40 years.
Light loss
Van Engelen, who took office in 2018 and will say goodbye on June 15, looks back with satisfaction on his years in Emmen. With a major reorganization, among other things, he reduced costs by millions of euros. He also implemented a change of course in which Wildlands, set up as a mix between amusement park and zoo, became a full zoo again.
This was well received: the number of visitors rose to 930,000 in 2019 and the loss of millions was limited to 2.5 million euros. After that, the park had to deal with corona. “But we have done better than budgeted every year. Also last year, when we still had to stay closed in January.
There were about 830,000 visitors and Wildlands suffered, according to Van Engelen, ”a slight loss”. The exact figures are not yet known.
Hopeful
According to him, Wildlands needs about 900,000 visitors every year to be able to write black figures. He is hopeful that this will succeed in 2023. “We are in better shape now than in 2019, the last year before corona. In January we did extremely well with the WildNights and the number of subscription holders is higher than it has been in years: 43,000. For comparison, at the low point it was 22,000. When I see how we are now, I could not wish for a better starting point for my departure.
Read the farewell interview with Erik van Engelen on Saturday morning, on dvhn.nl and in the app.