In the town of Wuchuan, Guangdong province, in southern China, land of about 20 million m2, (more than five times the size of New York’s Central Park), is committed to one of the world’s great tourist resorts. It is a project of the landscape, architecture and design firm Bensley, of the well-known American-born designer Bill Bensley. Yet the project is not only unique in its size. Speaking to Globetrender, Bensley said his client wanted to build a resort with a zoo, “but I don’t like zoos, so I said I’d see what I could do. We looked at all the zoos in China (…) and I said, let’s do a people’s zoo and all the animals can run free“. So was born WorldWild, a hotel development in which 95% of the space will be reserved for wildlife, whilst human visitors will be restricted to the remaining 5%.
Conceived as a sanctuary for animals, and with the idea of rescuing many of them from some of the zoos in China and elsewhere, the complex will be organised into three areas dedicated to three continents: Australia, Asia and Africa. Each of these areas will serve as a motif for the theming of several resorts with luxury hotels from major global chains. Among them, the Waldorf Astoria World Wild, Hyatt’s Dragon’s Nest, Hilton’s Colony Lodge, other Conrad and Canopy hotels, also from Hilton, others from Four Seasons, or the Kamp Koala, from Bill Bensley’s own Shinta Mani collection.
In addition, the three zones and their respective hotels will be connected by four train lines, whose carriages will offer a variety of services, from environmental conservation and sustainability workshops to variety shows. These will be the Tasmanian Tiger, which will run through the Australia themed area, the Oriental Express for Asia, the African Queen for Africa, and the Iron Horse, which will offer full-day tours. According to Bensley’s statement to Globetrender, “the government has approved all our plans and the most exciting thing is that we have a train that goes around and stops at different places in a very theatrical way (…) We hope to reach about ten million Chinese people a year in this way”.
Indeed, as exorbitant as it may seem, that is the forecast number of yearly visitors, 10 million. The many international airports in Guangdong province and the relative proximity of Hong Kong and Macao will contribute to this. The construction of the large theme complex, which, as Bensley points out, has the approval of the Chinese authorities, will take eight years, with the first phase scheduled to open in 2023.
