Australia’s Jamala Wildlife Lodge, which allows visitors to spend a night with the animals, may offer a blueprint for the future development of zoos in the UK.
Described by the hotel as a “once in a lifetime opportunity to get up close and personal with some of the Zoo’s beautiful residents”, guests at the recently opened hotel in the privately run National Zoo in Canberra are being given the chance to (almost) share their rooms with lions, cheetahs, or bears.
Each of the five “Jungle Bungalows” are separated from the zoo’s enclosures by a glass wall, so that the animals can be observed from guest’s beds or even the bath.
Bear necessities: even bathrooms have views of the animals
Waiting for the mane course: dining with the lions
Tiger feat: relaxing with the big cats
The hotel also includes six rooms in a treehouse next to the zoo’s giraffe enclosure giving visitors the chance to feed the animals from their balconies.
Seven further suites are placed in the owner’s former residence, alongside a 52,000 gallon shark tank.
The hotel, which has rooms that start from $AU400 (£202), has opened to glowing reviews with VeryFussyCaterpillar saying on TripAdvisor: “There are many zoos that tap into the ‘sleepover at the zoo’ concept, but I doubt that any of them pull it off as successfully as Jamala.”
Construction Manager is eager to see if the concept will be brought to the UK, and looks forward to potentially spending a night in London Zoo in the near future.
