So do you manage to interact with the cats in the
cat cafe based on
Part 2?
While most visitors enjoy interaction with cats, people like me won't visit there just for cats. As a scholar, I also interested to realize the economic perspective for cat cafe operation.
To simplify this blogpost, just let me share my view on these aspect:
Human Perspective:
Unclear whether it begun in Taiwan or Japan, but one fact was confirmed that Cat Cafe normally located at a population densed area like a city or metropolitan like Tokyo.
In a typical population densed area, the possibility for a resident rented the housing unit is higher than a resident who afford the housing unit. In most rental contract, it highlight that no pet are allowed. As the modern generation who stay in a city are getting more stressful and higher chance to get depressed due to stress and loneliness, they need some sort of entertainment to relieve it.
Many experts suggested that owning a pet is good to fight depression but how likely to own a pet when you rent a place. Is that means, people who rent has no right to adopt pet even though there are getting more and more strayed/feral animal around.
In addition, the land cost is relatively high in population densed area, therefore it is really unlikely the modern generation are able to afford a house in a city. So one interesting way to fight depression as well as a good chance to cat lover to expose to cats is through cat cafe if they were renting a housing unit.
On the other hand, you may afford a housing unit but if you are staying alone or your housing unit was too small, animal shelter authority may not grant you the right to adoption. For example, dogs require greater space in order to unleash its energy so that it won't be too aggressive. In the case , you are working and staying alone, the animal shelter authority can give an excuse that you have no time for your pet to reject your adoption application.
Therefore, pet adoption is not as easy as you think these days.
Cat Perspective:
In most country's regulation to control the population of strayed animal unless endangered, they prefer the catch and kill method. A pregnant dog will give birth to 10 puppies whereas a cat will give birth to 6 kittens.
Eventually, did "catch & kill" work? Still debatable but we still see strayed dogs and cats around these days although "catch & kill" had been implemented for so many decade.
If you're an animal lover, killing is not something you like to hear especially you are either dogs or cats' lover. Considered that the authority is targeting STRAYED animal, a strayed animal is unnecessary a wild animal (or feral cats), it can be a lost pet. If the owners didn't make report about their lost pet, the chance of their lost pet to survive is very low once they got caught.
In addition, the business world is ugly. If they caught a non-domestic shorthair, they might decided to sell it as those cats have market value. For example, a 6 months old Scottish Fold is sold around HKD9,800 in Hong Kong. Bengel kitten can be sold HKD28,000-HKD36,000. Through forum, you may find those hobby breeder, they might charge HKD4500 for British Shorthair, HKD6800 for American Shorthair. On the other hand, domestic shorthair has no value compared to those above, no one is willing to buy a domestic shorthair so either they are sent to animal shelter or they will be killed when the animal shelter has no space so domestic shorthairs are the unlucky breed.
A good solution to save the life of these strayed cats and dogs is adoption.
However, it is not easy to adopt an animal these days as I addressed in human perspective.
There are non-animal lover, so they will not adopt.
Even there are animal lovers, they may not be qualified to adopt one due to rental agreement or bad environment such that Animal Shelter Authority may not grant the adoption.
An alternative solution is cat cafe that might be more effective to save some cats' life. As mentioned in the previous post, there is an hourly charge rate followed by additional charged for food and drinks. These money can be used for personal profit as well as the money to sustain the cats' life.
Cat Cafe Strategy:
Depend on the size of your cat cafe, it determined the number of cats would be placed in the cafe. Typical value, perhaps 10-12 cats/cafe.
The strategy is you must adopt at least 5 special breeds otherwise no one is interested to visit your cat cafe then the rest will be the common domestic shorthairs.
With this direction, you are targeting clients who are cat lovers but simply not qualified for adoption. The only area to find this type of client is the highly population densed region.
Hygiene Issue:
It is true that some bacteria/parasite from the cat might be harmful to human and vice versa. Therefore, it is wiser to prepare cafe only or dry food for the human. A small kitchen where you can prepare drinks (like coffee & tea) and dry food are good enough.
If the local demand prefer a wet food or cooked food, you might consider to collaborate with other popular non-franchise to supply those food. Other than helping your business grow, you also help others' grow so this is beneficial to the local economy.
The point is don't get a wet kitchen in the cafe as it is very hard to prevent the cats to enter the kitchen. Kitchen can be a very dangerous place for your cats. For example, a cat can be killed by eating chocolate.
Other than human health concerns, cat's also need to be considered. Your business rely on the cat, if one of the cats was sick then infected to the others, your business is forced to shut down when someone reported to the Food and Hygiene Authority. Few months ago, a famous cat cafe was shut down in Japan due to cat's illness [
1]
Challenge Issue:
1. How to ensure the cats won't hurt the visitors?
2. How to control the behavior of both the cats and the visitors when one of them might started an unnecessary injury?
3. How to ensure the cats won't hate/fight each others all the time?
In short, how to control cats and misbehaved/uncivilized visitors???
Sustainability:
Currently, I am a owner of 2 cats. Although I just adopted them 1.5 months, I am very sure that same trick won't work long. For example, those toys I bought for my kitten, they might be addicted to play it for the 1st month, now they are not amused unless I played with them. Consider that one of my kitten was 3.5 months old and the other was 2+ months old only.
As time passed, when your cats reached two years old and above, it is very difficulty for your visitor to interact with the cats especially they are so used to strangers. They can simply don't care everything.
You should expect that the visitors will be fed up when the cats resisted to interact. Very simple, do you want to pay an hourly rate charge, just go there and see the cats?
With conservative estimation, the number of visitors would drop half in 2nd or 3rd year of operation. The remaining half are true cat lovers who just enjoy looking at the cats (and I saw some developed unique relation with specifc cat) but the rest, they just want freshness of entertainment.
For my point of view, cat cafe business cannot survive if the cafe owners didn't change the system regardless how hygient the cat cafe.
I proposed two solutions:
Solution#1:
Older cats can be sold to those clients who developed a specific relationship.
It is money business but at least, the older cat can find a long term owners where it can be the most happy cat. As there is one saying, "One cat is the happiest cat"
Once you sold it, you can introduce playful kitten or special breed to boost up the market. In addition, adult cats supposed to be easier to be adopted than kitten due to kitten has high energy level and greater curiousity.
Solution#2:
Don't just emphasize the cat, it is a cat cafe. Make sure that your coffee or tea able to capture your visitors' taste. If you're making good coffee, coffee lover won't mind about the cost to enjoy your coffee.
Summary:
Cat Cafe is an alternative solution to save the strayed cats' life. Unlike animal shelter "beg" money for donation to sustain the animal life, it will be better to let the cats earn the money themselves.
Whenever you visit a cat cafe, you might consider it as charitable entertainment provided the cafe owners are
ethical.
Bonus: Is Dog Cafe Feasible?
In term of land size, you need a lot bigger, probably a basketball field for maximum 3-5 dogs. As I addressed earlier, dogs need to unleash their energy most of the time to reduce their aggressive behavior.
In term of operating cost, it is more expensive than cats.
In term of behavior, not all dogs can be trained to urinate/defacate at specific area such as dog toilet.
I won't say it is not feasible but the operating cost is higher for sure and how to train the dog to toilet?
