DEL.ICIO.USGeorgia Aquarium: New fish every 90 days
Downtown Atlanta attraction wants to pump up ‘wow factor’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Thursday, August 21, 2008
In an effort to increase attendance, the Georgia Aquarium will add a “wow factor” fish to its waters every quarter, interim Chief Executive Officer Mike Leven says.
“We need to ensure that every 90 days or so we have new things coming to the aquarium,” Leven said, flipping through a stack of possible candidates such as barracuda, tiger sharks and colorful yellowfin tuna. “You have to constantly upgrade and bring in new and interesting animals. They are a critical component to our growth.”
Ben Gray/bgray@ajc.com
Georgia Aquarium visitors take in the Pacific sea nettle display Wednesday. The aquarium’s interim CEO wants to frequently bring in new ‘charismatic’ fish to help draw return visitors.
Ben Gray/bgray@ajc.com
A whale sharks glides past as Andrew and Geraldine Buckle of New York City look at the Georgia Aquarium’s Ocean Voyager exhibit Wednesday. Attendance has been down, although the 2.2 million visitors expected this year will still rank the aquarium among the most visited tanks in the U.S.
• Titanic exhibit coming to Georgia Aquarium | Photos
• Georgia Aquarium news, photos and links
LIVING
Latest Headlines:
• More Living Stories
• Living photo galleries
• Georgia Aquarium news and photos
• Zoo Atlanta news and photos
But Jeff Swanagan, the former head of the aquarium, is not convinced such a quick turnaround is possible. He said fish can be quarantined for as much as 45 days depending on species or size. If there’s a problem, quarantine can last even longer, he said.
“That will be virtually impossible to do,” Swanagan, now executive director of Ohio’s Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, said of Leven’s plan. “But if there is a place that can do it, it’s the Georgia Aquarium.”
Steve Feldman, a spokesman for the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, agreed. He said he was not aware of any aquarium with the kind of timeline Leven is suggesting, but he said the Georgia Aquarium has the expertise to pull it off.
Leven said his aggressive plan to introduce new “charismatic” fish every quarter is a sea change from the course the world’s largest fish tank has been charting. With the exception of a handful of smaller species and the four whale sharks that replaced Ralph and Norton, who died last year, the aquarium’s inhabitants have mostly been the same since the tank’s opening in November 2005.
Leven said that inertia may have stopped some visitors — especially locals, who are the bread and butter of the attraction — from coming back a second and third time, which is crucial to the aquarium’s bottom line. While the slumping economy has contributed to the attendance drop, he said he believes the aquarium has not given visitors enough reasons to come back.
“No business can exist on creating new customers all the time,” he said. “It’s a very expensive and difficult process.”
Plus, aquarium spokesman Dave Santucci said, giving visitors more reasons to come back increases the possibility of turning frequent visitors into annual pass holders.
“People are much more likely to join if it is a changing, dynamic institution rather than a static institution,” Santucci said.
While attendance is down, Santucci was quick to point out that the aquarium is not foundering. Attendance this year is projected to be about 2.2 million visitors, handily one of the most visited fish tanks in the country.
Leven, who made his name in the hospitality industry as the head of hotel brands Days Inn and later Holiday Inn, took over as the leader of the aquarium in June after Swanagan stepped down.
Since then, Leven has accepted the resignations of two top aquarium officials and reshuffled other positions. Last week, he announced the traveling Titanic exhibit, which was in Atlanta in 2006 — would come to the aquarium beginning Aug. 22.
Northwestern University branding expert Tim Calkins said attractions have to keep interest up to stay on the radar.
“The challenge for any organization today is to stay relevant,” he said. “When an institution is brand-new, a whole lot of people will come in to see it. That’s easy. But what happens when they’ve all visited?”
This may have been a question that aquarium founder Bernie Marcus, the billionaire co-founder of Home Depot, wanted answered, too. He asked Leven, who at the time ran Marcus’ private foundation, to look at the aquarium and its direction.
In May, Leven said he reported to Marcus that the aquarium needed to be run more like a business, including naming a new CEO, though he would have left Swanagan as chief operating officer and president.
Putting new fish on display every 90 days has its risks, Leven said. In addition to finding the fish and quarantining them for 30 to 45 days to monitor their health, the aquarium also would have to find specimens that can either survive predators or don’t eat the tank’s inhabitants.
The cost of bringing in new fish depends on the size and variety, Santucci said. Most of the money — anywhere from pennies to hundreds or thousands of dollars — is spent on transportation and labor.
Sky Lantz-Wagner, who operates Dove 6, an Atlanta-based whale shark tourism business in Cancun, Mexico, said he doesn’t think a new fish every 90 days is the answer to strengthening attendance. Introducing new fish rapidly can be intrusive to the attraction’s eco-system.
Plus, he said, how do you top a whale shark?
“It sounds a little gimmicky to me,” he said. “It’s not the circus, it’s an aquarium.”
Services »
