Watlington’s Watatunga Wildlife Reserve wins best small visitor attraction in the 2023 Visit England awards
A wildlife reserve has been named as England’s best small visitor attraction in a ceremony this week.
Watatunga Wildlife Reserve in Watlington was chosen by Visit England as the Best Small Visitor Attraction at an awards ceremony held at the Harry Potter Studios.
Founders of the wildlife reserve, Ed and Anna Pope, are “on cloud nine” after accepting the award on the Hogwarts Express on Wednesday evening.
Anna said: “We’re proud as punch. We’re just delighted and it’s a real testament to our incredibly hardworking and passionate team.
“It’s very exciting to bring this award to the East of England and get the recognition for the area as well.”
Watatunga spans over 170 acres and is home to a variety of free roaming animals. It offers a number of guided tours, experiences and educational visits.
Anna added: “The team are absolutely delighted. Every single one of them are really passionate about what we’re trying to achieve in terms of conservation and to get this recognition at a national level so early on in our conservation journey is incredible.”
As well as scooping up the award, Watatunga was also recognised with a bronze award for inclusive and accessible tourism.
Anna said: “We’ve added a wheelchair accessible trailer to our tours.
“We’ve also developed new experiences, we have a photography experience, a barbecue hut experience and we’re just looking at developing a corporate experience for small teams to come and have an away day with us at any point in the year.”
Last year, Watatunga also won the New Tourism Business of the Year 2021/22 in the East of England Tourism Awards.
The owners have praised other businesses in Watlington and surrounding areas such as The Angel, who joined Watatunga in the East of England Tourism Awards last year and were highly commended.
Anna said: “We’d love to emphasise we’re really proud of the area and we hope this will bring more visitors through the area and therefore that will support fantastic local businesses.”
