ASHEBORO, N.C. — The North Carolina Zoo is ringing in the new year by reaching a personal milestone:
One million guests in a single calendar year.
With only a few days left to spare in 2023, one North Carolina resident, Ran Liu, became the 1 millionth guest at the largest natural habitat zoo in the world.
'With the rain, we weren’t expecting it to happen yesterday, and I kept getting these messages saying, 'we’re 100 people away', so I was like running into the zoo to be a part of the celebration," recounted NC Zoo's Director of Communication and Marketing, Diane Villa.
Villa has been with the zoo for 29 years, when it was just the Africa habitat. She said they were close to achieving their goal back in 2019 with 917,000 recorded guests. However, with the rise of COVID-19, the NC Zoo had to shut its doors on March 17, 2020, for three months.
Three years later, the NC Zoo in Asheboro has not only seen their numbers return to those pre-pandemic highs, but they have also seen their current economic impact balloon to $180 million in the heart of North Carolina.
“When we open Asia, and we are also looking for our attendance to rise to 1.5 million with Asia. Our economic impact will be about $300 million for this area," said Villa.
While the Asia habitat doesn't open until 2026, next year, the zoo will still celebrate its 50th anniversary.
"Next year in 2024, we're actually not opening any new exhibit, because our focus right now, Asia, is such a huge project. All of our resources are going towards that. But it's going to be really spectacular and we are already starting to get animals coming," Villa expressed.
With the completion of one milestone, the North Carolina Zoo welcomes its next one.