Challenges

River Safari faces several challenges that would decrease their visitor arrivals over the years. These challenges include the River Safari Cruise, huge dependence on the few animals and its limited F&B facilities.

Firstly, the River Safari Cruise is not a popular ride as visitors find it boring with nothing much to see or do. If it was not free, will visitors still take the ride? I doubt so. From word-of-mouth, visitors will probably know that this boat ride is not very interesting. First-time visitors will probably take the ride if they have not heard about it but visitors who went before or know someone who went before would probably skip it in favour of the Amazon River Quest and other exhibits.

Secondly, one of the major reasons to visit the River Safari is to see the giant pandas. Without them, will there still be a lot of visitors? Other than the pandas, there are mainly marine life. However, some of these animals can also be found at other wildlife parks such as Underwater World Singapore and Singapore Zoo. Visitors will more likely visit these well-established attractions with similar animals at similar admission prices.

Thirdly, there are very few F&B facilities at River Safari – Mama Panda Kitchen and River Safari Tea House. This gives visitors very little selection of food. This could be viewed as inconvenient for visitors as they would have to make extra plans for their meals. In addition, the F&B outlets do not provide much Halal food which provides another inconvenience to Muslim visitors.