A great guest experience at Jacksonville Zoo and Botanical Gardens does not happen by accident. It is built through the operational decisions guests may never notice but always feel: a smooth arrival, timely service, thoughtful food and retail options, well-run events, and hospitality that feels connected to the Zoo’s mission.
As the Zoo’s hospitality partner, SSA Group supports those guest-facing moments across admissions, food and beverage, catering and retail, helping each visit feel welcoming, seamless, and grounded in the purpose of delivering seamless hospitality across the full guest journey.
Within that broader partnership, Tonya Reeves, SSA Group's General Manager of Jacksonville Zoo and Botanical Gardens' Food, Retail, and Admissions, plays an important role in shaping the hospitality experiences guests remember long after they leave.
A Seamless Experience Starts Behind the Scenes
At Jacksonville Zoo and Botanical Gardens, some of the most meaningful guest moments begin long before a guest steps up to a café counter or walks into a retail shop.
Tonya spearheads the planning, coordination and care that make those moments possible. Across a large and active site, Tonya and her team are constantly looking ahead: forecasting attendance, preparing staffing, managing inventory, shaping menus, selecting merchandise, watching the weather, responding to seasonal demand and supporting special programming.
The work is operational, but its impact is deeply human.
Because at a cultural attraction, admissions, food and retail are never just transactions. They are part of how guests move through the day, take a break, gather with family, discover something unexpected, connect more deeply with the mission, and remember the visit after they leave.
Hospitality That Feels Personal
Tonya’s path to hospitality began in a different kind of service. Before joining SSA Group, she spent 20 years as a nurse manager, leading teams in an environment where care, awareness and anticipation were essential every day.
At first glance, healthcare and zoo hospitality may seem worlds apart. Tonya sees the connection clearly. 
That lens shapes how she leads. For Tonya, Jacksonville Zoo food and retail are not simply places where guests buy a meal, a drink, or a souvenir. They are moments within the larger guest journey, each carrying the potential to make the day feel easier, more personal, and more connected.
A well-timed meal break, a helpful team member, a merchandise item that reminds a child of their favorite animal, or a smooth service experience on a busy day can all become part of how a guest remembers the Zoo. Under Tonya’s leadership, those moments are approached with the same care that defined her career in healthcare: anticipate the need, support the person in front of you, and create an experience that feels welcoming from start to finish.
One Team, One Guest Experience
One of the strengths of the SSA Group and Jacksonville Zoo and Botanical Gardens partnership is how closely the teams work together. Tonya describes the relationship as highly collaborative, with SSA working alongside Zoo leadership to support the broader guest experience.
That kind of partnership helps both teams stay close to guests’ needs in real time, strengthen day-to-day operations, and bring forward new ideas that make each visit better. The goal is for hospitality to be embedded in every Zoo experience.
As Tonya shared, “From a guest’s perspective, there shouldn’t be a line between the Zoo and hospitality. It should feel like one seamless experience.”
That idea reflects how SSA Group approaches partnerships with cultural attractions: not as a separate operator, but as an integrated partner that understands the institution’s mission, audience, brand, and business needs.
Supporting Big Moments at Jacksonville Zoo
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Jacksonville Zoo and Botanical Gardens Toast to Conservation with special guest Robert Irwin.
Photo by Jacksonville Zoo
SSA’s partnership with Jacksonville Zoo is particularly important during major events and mission-driven experiences.
One recent highlight was Toast to Conservation with Robert Irwin, where 760 guests enjoyed a seamless dining and event experience while supporting the Zoo’s conservation initiatives. Moments like this depend on operational alignment guests may never notice directly: teams moving in sync, details accounted for and hospitality supporting the larger purpose of the experience.
That same approach extends across the full guest journey. Whether guests are exploring the new Manatee River habitat, stopping for lunch, browsing the retail store or attending a special event, each touchpoint influences how they move through the day, engage with the Zoo’s mission and carry the experience with them after they leave.
Celebrating What Jacksonville Zoo and Botanical Gardens Is Building
SSA’s work at Jacksonville Zoo and Botanical Gardens is happening during an exciting chapter for the institution. The Zoo recently opened the J. Wayne and Delores Barr Weaver Manatee River habitat, giving guests an up-close look at one of Florida’s most iconic species while deepening education around manatee conservation.
That work extends beyond the habitat through rescue, rehabilitative care, research, education, and community outreach. Through programs like Connecting Classrooms to Conservation, local students are also engaging in project-based learning, mock rescue activities, and stewardship projects that make conservation feel real, relevant, and actionable.
That is the power of mission-driven cultural attractions. They are more than places people visit for a day. They are places where families, students, and communities build lasting connections to ideas, histories, cultures, wildlife, science, and the natural world. At their best, these experiences help people see the world differently and understand their own role in caring for it.
Why Hospitality Matters to the Mission
Hospitality and conservation are often discussed in different contexts, but guests experience them together. A welcoming, well-run visit creates the conditions for deeper engagement. When guests feel cared for, comfortable, and able to move through the day with ease, they are more open to learning, connecting, returning, becoming members, and supporting the mission.
At Jacksonville Zoo and Botanical Gardens, that connection comes to life through the partnership between the Zoo, SSA Group, and team members like Tonya Reeves, who help make each visit feel thoughtful, welcoming, and connected to something larger than the day itself.
For SSA Group, this is where One Revenue Strategy becomes more than an operating model. By aligning admissions, food and beverage, catering, retail, and guest experience, every touchpoint can support the partner’s mission, strengthen the guest journey, and contribute to long-term growth.
At Jacksonville Zoo, that strategy shows up in the moments guests remember: the meal that makes the day easier, the souvenir that keeps the memory alive, the team member who makes someone feel cared for, and the experience that helps connect a great visit to a greater purpose. That is the role of hospitality at its best: helping mission-driven places create visits that feel seamless in the moment and meaningful long after guests leave.
Learn more in the original article from Jacksonville Zoo & Botanical Gardens spring edition of Wild published by the Zoo here.
