Losing Money to Be a Tycoon

Chapter 1447: The Preliminary Plan for the Zoo

Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios

When he reached home, Pei Qian took out his laptop. First, he briefly looked up some information about the zoo online. After understanding some basic knowledge, he began to think about what to do with Tengda’s zoo.

First of all, it was definitely not a large-scale zoo, at least not at the moment.

Many large-scale zoos overseas had requirements for locations and climate. For example, some tropical countries would set up tropical zoos because of the suitable climate and the large location.

However, Pei Qian’s idea was to open this zoo near Thriller Hostel, which was Jingzhou’s old industrial zone. Strictly speaking, this place was not a good location for the zoo at all. The climate in Jingzhou itself was not suitable for keeping some tropical or cold-blooded animals.

Of course, he could set up an indoor unit. He could adjust the temperature through the air conditioner.

However, that would definitely increase the working period and expenses.

Pei Qian did not mind the huge expenses, but he still had to consider the working period. After all, the first stage of the zoo project was to spend as much money as possible. It had to be completed before the next settlement.

What’s more, the larger the zoo was, the more rare animals there would be, and the more tourists there would be. The chances of making profits would also greatly increase.

All in all, the first goal of this zoo was to make it smaller under the premise of ensuring the working period. It would be best if there were no rare animals. On this basis, burn as much money as possible.

If the first step was successful, they could try something more challenging later on. For example, they could build air-conditioning houses on a large scale and put some tropical or cold animals in.

Second, he had to think carefully about the choice of animals.

In order to reduce the number of tourists, he had to arrange for fewer rare animals.

Many small zoos did not have much to look at themselves. However, there would be an endless stream of tourists because there were two pandas in the park.

Many especially rare animals shipped from other countries would become the treasure of the zoo. It would become a reason why most people had to go.

The most precious item in the zoo had to be the animals.

If he wanted to become popular, he had to work on animals.

Thus, since he did not want to become popular and wanted to lose money, he could not ask for too many rare animals. At the very least, he could not ask for them at this stage. Even if he wanted rare animals in the future, he had to fully assess and discover that the expenses of nurturing them far exceeded the benefits.

The question was, if he did not keep rare animals, what would he keep?

The entire zoo could not only have horses, cows, sheep, and the like, right? Would that be called a zoo or a farm?

Pei Qian could not allow others to tell at a glance that there was a huge problem.

Thus, he had to find a balance: While keeping some wild animals to fill the gap, he had to keep as many common and boring animals as possible.

This zoo could also not be called a zoo, but also an animal museum.

“What kind of animals would be more cost effective?”

“It would be best if it was between domestically-produced and precious wild animals such as the Serval cat, Arctic fox and Angru marten.”

There was a difference between domestically and overseas when it came to farming wild animals. Some domestically-produced wild animals such as cheetahs and American lions were not allowed in China. For example, the Serval cat was a protected animal in China which could not be raised casually.

Some animals, such as North Pole foxes and Angru martens, could be kept as pets.

However, no matter what, any animals that could be domestically were definitely more common and not that rare.

How could ordinary people raise rare animals when they were all protected?

Thus, according to this train of thought, it was more appropriate to raise these animals in the zoo. On one hand, they were not very rare and would not attract tourists from afar to come and take a look. On the other hand, they were indeed genuine wild animals. It would not seem strange to put them in the zoo. It would not make people feel that the zoo was actually a cat cafe or a farm.

All in all, as a zoo, he could spend money anywhere but on rare wild animals.

Where should he spend the money?

It was very simple, spend it on venue, food, and personnel!

First was the venue. Pei Qian had been to many small zoos. These zoos took up a lot of space but there were too many animals after all. There was not much space for activities on each animal.

Of course, there were standards for the activities of all animals. They had to follow the “Zoo Design Regulations”.

There were strict requirements for the specific proportion of land that would be occupied by animals exhibition area buildings, science education buildings, animal security facilities buildings, and so on. There were also strict requirements for the size of tourists and the area of tourable buildings, green land, and so on.

All the zoos must have followed the corresponding rules.

However, this rule only stated the lower limit. There was no upper limit!

Space would never be enough. After all, wild animals were originally wild. They ran around in the forest. No amount of space would be enough if they were locked up.

Thus, Pei Qian decided that each animal in this new zoo would take up at least 50% more space than the other zoos!

Take baboon for example. The smallest cage area was 80 square meters, the fence was 4 meters high, and the basic number of groups was 2 adult individuals. The area of the inner house would increase by 25% to 50% for every additional adult individual.

In layman’s terms, two baboon would take up 80 square meters of space. Every additional one would cost at least 20 square meters.

However, this area was only the lower limit of the national cage design parameters. It would definitely be a little cramped.

Pei Qian decided to raise this standard by 50%, which was 80 square meters to 120 square meters. For every additional adult individual, the maximum area would be increased by 50%!

Of course, he could not go overboard. It would be too strange if he said that the area would only increase by three or four times. It would be too strange if he only raised two baboon in a cage that was more than 300 square meters. Tourists would not look at animals but look for animals. They would not know where the two baboon went.

Pei Qian did not mind this situation, but if he went overboard, the motive would be too obvious. The system might not agree. What’s more, if it was too ridiculous, it might become a heated discussion online and inexplicably accumulate unnecessary popularity.

The cage was larger, but it could not be too eye-catching.

The environment in the cage had to be the best, that was for sure.

Next was food. This was also based on the highest standards and specifications. There was nothing much to say.

There would definitely not be a situation where animals’ food would be deducted under the watchful eyes of Tang Xinzhang. What’s more, letting animals eat better would only increase their fats. Tourists would not be able to tell much. The money would be spent very covertly and was very worth it.

Lastly was the personnel.

The zoo required a large number of people, such as breeders, fertilizers, vet, cleaning, and so on.

These were all the supporting facilities that were necessary for the zoo. There were more or less a fixed number of animals and vet needs. Pei Qian could not hire more than that even if he wanted to. There would always be a limit to how much he could give them.

Thus, it would be difficult to burn more money in this area.

However, Pei Qian had another way: to add more service staff!

Ordinary zoos did not need many service staff. At most, they would guide tourists. The animals were also raised in the cage. Tourists could just walk by and take a look. There was no need for service staff to guide them.

Pei Qian thought that even though the zoo did not have this requirement, it could create demand!

There was an ‘indoor zoo’ now, mainly raising small animals. Some small animals, such as sharks, serpents, hamsters, owls, Angru martins, and the like could be touched directly.

If tourists were allowed to touch these animals, wouldn’t they need staff to guide them?

Take the owls for example. There was an owls cafe overseas. They could play with them, but they could only touch the feathers on their heads and not other places.

At that time, he could ask the staff to guide the tourists. First, they could disinfect their hands with hand soap. Then, they could touch the cat’s head according to the staff’s requirements. Or they could wear special braces and let the cat stand on it to interact.

If he arranged for two or three staffs to receive all the interactive animals, wouldn’t that make a lot of employees?

These employees were usually very free and received a lot of salary. Weren’t they perfect tools?

Of course, considering this point, the shape of the zoo had to change as well. It would be best if it was divided into two different exhibition areas. One side would display wild animals that could only be seen through cages, and the other side would be like many indoor zoos. The exhibition would show animals that could be touched and interacted up close with the staff.

It just so happened that there were many abandoned factory buildings in the old industrial zone. It would be good to turn them into indoor zoos.

Apart from that, he would take out a portion of the space and insert it into various areas of the zoo to give tourists rest. He would avoid the awkward situation of having nowhere to rest in the zoo that he had been shopping for a long time.

More importantly, he could take up more space!

At that time, there would not be many animals in the huge zoo. What’s more, they would be very common animals. No one would come, right?

Pei Qian nodded in satisfaction after finalizing these points.

Hm, not bad!

According to the current plan, it would definitely not become popular within a year, right?

As long as the initial process was smooth, it would prove that this model was feasible. Then, he could continue to expand, increase the investment, and burn money happily.

Of course, the content that Pei Qian was thinking about was very crude and simple. After all, he was not a professional and did not know the details. He had only formulated this strategy based on information found online.

Pei Qian planned to have a good chat with him when he arrived in Jingzhou in two days. On one hand, he wanted to share his thoughts with him and determine the direction of the zoo.. On the other hand, he wanted to ask for his opinion and see if there were any better plans for improvement in this zoo.