Company Profile
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WhiteWater
How was WhiteWater born? Technically our 30th birthday was December 15, that’s the same day that in 1980 we closed the deal on purchasing some property in British Columbia to build our own waterpark. My background was with KPMG for six years prior to that but after seeing the first waterslide park in Canada I naively thought, “Wouldn’t that be a good idea?” So we built one but had to come up with our own moulds and slides. White Water opened in ’81 and that summer several people came by and said, “I would like you to do that in my hometown.” Because we had the engineering experience and the moulds we did four that year and, as they say in French, the rest of history.
What have been some of your biggest achievements?
Disney’s AquaDuck
Being the designer and supplier to Disney remains very special to us and that culminated this January with the launch of the Disney Dream cruise ship, where we outfitted the entire top deck including the AquaDuck, a spectacular ride that is featured in every one of their ads. Doing all the conceptual design of the largest waterpark in the world, Caribbean Bay owned by Samsung in Korea, was a
highlight. That is ranked as one of the most poplar waterparks in the world by attendance, the two Orlando parks being first and second with about 2.2 million. In third place is Chimelong Water Park in China with 1.8 million guests, which is remarkable given that they are only open five months of the year, whereas the Disney parks open all year round. Again we did all the conceptual planning and masterplanning as well as the supply. To have opened the first Legoland Water Park this summer in California was important to us and the two Atlantis projects, in the Bahamas and the Palm in Dubai, are significant achievements. We have done all 13 of the Carnival cruise ships, and in Europe doing the last
30 years of the world’s greatest waterparks
With more than 4,000 projects under its belt, no one has designed and built as many waterparks as WhiteWater. Now celebrating 30 years in business, this leading Canadian supplier acts as a full service provider to waterpark projects around the world, handling everything from design and masterplanning to slides, wave pools, FlowRiders and other water-based attractions. As the company gears up for the biggest year in its history, Park World catches up with WhiteWater president Geoff Chutter (left)
five Center Parcs would rank up there too. Locally we have done the largest waterpark in Canada, in Ottawa, but have also been recognised for an export award and the 50 best- managed companies award, which was important on a business level.
What sets WhiteWater apart from other waterpark suppliers? I think it’s that we are a waterpark company, not just a suppler of one line, whereas
some of the others are suppliers of wave equipment, interactive equipment, waterslides etc. You can look at some parks around the world and say that was designed by such and such a supplier because of the equipment in there. We don’t suffer from that. We look at the overall park and our focus on getting the most successful, profitable waterpark for the end user. The largest wave pool in the world, Sunway Lagoon in Kuala Lumpur, was by Whitewater. We have probably got around 85% of the interactive market with AquaPlay, as well as the largest selection of waterslides. And of course we provide design and masterplanning too. Most of the suppliers in the industry subcontract, but our fibreglass plant is a 90,000 sq ft plant in British Columbia, our interactive plant is a 30,000 sq ft plant attached to our head office in Vancouver, and we’ve got another plant for the PrimePlay dry product line.
The “flume-thru-flume” concept, coming soon to Bali Waterpark
What will be some of your highlights for the coming year? Our largest year in terms of signing bottom line contracts was 2010, which effectively means delivery in 2011. The Asian market has been very strong for us and we are doing large projects in Thailand, in Korea and three large projects in China, including one outside Shanghai, one right in the centre of Shenzhen and the Bali Waterpark in the north east of China, which is massive. We are also doing large projects in India, Iran and Africa.
Bali Waterpark 22
Why will Bali Waterpark be “The World’s Greatest”? The magnitude of the order. We signed two recently that we classify as the largest orders ever in the industry, one would be Yas Island in Abu Dhabi, where WhiteWater is doing nine out of the 10 complexes and we are also very involved in the masterplanning together with Atkins out of the UK. That one for us is an over $14 million contract. Bali is a little less, around $12 million, but given that construction costs are extremely high in the Middle East and
FEBRUARY 2011
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