Zoos are trialling a range of digital technologies aiming to enhance the visitor experience. Voice-based chatbots are of interest as a tool that offers new ways of interaction for visitors to learn about animals. This paper explores the opportunities for voice-based chatbots to be used in zoos and how it might be deployed to enhance the visitor experience. We studied a prototype voice-based chatbot deployed at a zoo and conducted interviews with zoo visitors to investigate their perceptions and expectations of this type of technology. We developed new insights into how voice-based chatbots might be designed to address visitor preferences and zoos’ educational mission. We identified three themes in visitors’ responses, which are an expectation of voice-based chatbot influence by visitor motivation, voice-based chatbot physical interface, and interactivity of voice-based chatbot. Finally, this paper presents four considerations for design of the conversational user experience and the physical interface of a voice-based chatbot for zoos. We expect such design enhancements in both aspects could provide interactive features that might enhance zoo visitors’ experiences.