Chester Zoo is hosting a summit with the Met Office, government officials and leaders from 16 major UK attractions – including ZSL, Bletchley Park and Go Ape – to fix how weather forecasts are displayed to the public.
It follows Chester Zoo’s campaign back in March, which argued a single rain icon can wrongly write off an entire day and cost attractions up to £137k in lost visitor income.
There are new numbers to back it up. A survey of UK attractions found over 60% report visitor drops of more than 40% after a poorly displayed forecast, with some losing more than half their visitors on a single bad icon.
Attractions are proposing fixes including splitting each day into shorter time slots – as used by Norwegian forecaster YR, which breaks a 24-hour period into four six-hour windows so a brief early-morning shower doesn’t skew the picture for the rest of the day.
Navigate’s survey found more than 80% of attractions saw this kind of approach as a useful solution. Other suggestions include clearer written summaries and a “dry hours” indicator. Organisers say the summit is designed to produce a set of jointly agreed recommendations.
Since the original call in March, support has spread well beyond the visitor attractions sector, with organisations including the National Association of British Market Authorities, the National Market Traders Federation and UK Events all adding their backing – a sign, organisers say, of how widely weather-dependent trading affects the UK economy.
Dom Strange, Chief Operating Officer of Chester Zoo, said:
“In March we said the problem wasn’t the forecast, it was the single icon used to sum up an entire day. Since then, we’ve had constructive conversations with the Met Office, and this summit is the next step. Getting government and 16 of the country’s biggest attractions round the same table is a real opportunity.
“We want to leave this room with recommendations we can actually put into practice.”
Olly Reed, Marketing Director at Navigate, said:
“Our latest data shows this issue hasn’t gone away, it’s become more significant. In March we were talking about a 30% drop in visitors from a misleading rain icon. Today, some attractions are reporting losses of more than 50%.
“The difference now is that the people who can influence what happens next are in the room. That’s the point where a campaign becomes change.”
