Why Marwell wildlife Zoo chose an immersive experience to enhance year-round visitor engagement
In a move to redefine educational storytelling, Marwell Wildlife Zoo has become the first UK institution to permanently integrate a Wild Immersion experience into its visitor journey.Through a long-term partnership, the zoo now offers an ongoing immersive experience inside its iconic Giraffe House, combining virtual reality with a uniquely illustrated explorer’s journal, a visual journey across ecosystems, guided by the handwritten notes of a curious adventurer.
🌍 A new way to experience nature
Visitors step into the shoes of a modern-day explorer, navigating through beautifully designed infographics and personal notes. As they follow the explorer’s path, they encounter key habitats through immersive 360° nature films, coming face-to-face with gorillas, lions, birds of prey, and coral reef creatures.
This summer, visitors discovered two breathtaking Wild Immersion films:
🎞The Savannah Cycle(12 min) A powerful journey through Kenya’s Masai Mara and Tanzania’s Serengeti. This film takes viewers alongside vast herbivore migrations, predator ambushes, and the subtle dynamics that sustain one of Earth’s most iconic (and threatened) ecosystems.
🎞The New Odyssey (11 min) A poetic and visually stunning look at evolution, exploring the extraordinary adaptations that life has developed to survive and thrive across time from coral reefs to snow-covered peaks, and jungles to deserts.
Why an immersive experience made sense for Marwell zoo
Faced with the challenge of maintaining visitor excitement year-round, without major construction, Marwell identified immersive technology as a flexible and impactful solution. Rather than competing with existing installations, the Wild Immersion zone adds a new layer of interpretation —quiet, contemplative, emotional. The VR format is inclusive, easy to operate, and ideally suited for moments of calm learning and reflection within the busy zoo environment.
More than 5,300 emotional journeys
Over the course of the summer, more than 5,300 visitors participated in the experience inside the Giraffe House. While written feedback is still being collected, the reactions spoke for themselves: smiles, wide eyes, and spontaneous conversations sparked by the experience, especially among younger guests.
The explorer’s journal became a conversation starter. Parents and children alike paused, pointed, discussed, and imagined themselves joining the animals they had just seen in VR. It wasn’t just a viewing — it was a moment of shared curiosity and discovery.
🌱 A long-term vision
This first permanent installation in the UK marks a turning point. Immersive experiences are no longer just seasonal “extras”, they are becoming core tools of modern zoo storytelling. By blending immersive tech with educational content and a visitor-centric design, Marwell wildlife Zoo is showing how to build deeper connections, increase accessibility, and expand emotional engagement, all while staying true to its conservation mission. For zoos facing seasonal or spatial constraints, this is more than an installation, it’s a future-proof educational format.
Wild Immersion is proud to support this vision and honoured to bring the wild to life, one at a time.
