3.4. Potential Users of a Website on Zoo Design

When assuming that zoo visitors are representing the global population, there would be 24 million (4 % of 600 million) internet users among them, 14.4 million (60 %  of 24 million) of them using English websites. However, zoo visitors are more likely to live in cities of industrialized  countries. Besides, internet use is rapidly increasing. Thus, 50 million of zoo visitors can eventually be expected to use English websites. These 50 million of zoo visitors are potential visitors of the ZooLex website.

The World Zoo Organization has about 550 institutional members in 54 countries. If ZooLex can reach about 1,000 interested users per institution by support from these institutions, about 550,000 ZooLex visitors can be expected in a medium-term. These figures are low estimates since internet use is still rare in many countries. However, projections show yearly doubling of internet usage (source: http://www.euromktg.com).

The following is an estimation of professional ZooLex users who might be ZooLex members: an average of three internet users per member institution of the WZO and the same number of commercial users per member institution adds up to 3,300 professional that might use ZooLex within a short-term. Assuming that animal keepers will willingly use the Zoolex website, too, I expect a substantial higher number of professional ZooLex users within a medium-term.

The costs for the reservation of a web domain and for server space are not substantial. What really counts for the cost of a website is the labor for creating and maintaining it and its marketing. These estimates show that a website can reach far more individuals at a relatively low price than any other medium.

I therefore designed my pilot project based on the criteria developed for the assessment of animal exhibits and my knowledge about the potential of a website on zoo design. The goal of the pilot project was to explore the level of interest of the target audience in the information provided.