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s into Cedar Point ParkBloggin’ Yield Management


park has opened several new live shows for the 2011 season, iranging from musical revues to ice- skating, skateboarding and gravity- defying stunt shows. Meanwhile the park’s new night-time show features patriotic music, high-definition images and colourful pyrotechnics.


*See next month’s Park World for a full report on WindSeeker at Canada’s Wonderland


by Dennis Speigel


For the last decade, I have been perplexed by rising prices at theme parks. I have also been concerned about the enormous amount of discounting that parks and attractions find necessary to continue to “pump up” attendance. Certainly during the last three years, our industry has seen an all-time high in discounting, which has become the “promotion du jour” at many parks.


Discounting has occurred on three fronts: it has occurred earlier than ever before, it has been deeper than ever before, and it has remained in the marketplace longer than ever before. Yes, in most instances it has maintained established levels of attendance, but it has also created a dilution of operating income. The days of “build it and they will come” have subsided due in part to the maturing of our industry. We are reaching the point of saturation. Discounting has become a way to offset attendance decline due to the downward spiral of the economy, higher oil prices, growing competition, price increases and industry maturity. These issues must be carefully addressed.


So I ask you, is it time to take a lesson from airlines and hotels and develop a “yield management” mentality? For years, both of these hospitality industries have practiced yield


All but four of the Top 15 parks in the Asia-Pacific region recorded gains in 2010. As well as the aforementioned Lotte World, there were large increases for some of the OCT parks in China with Shenzhen’s OCT East, Happy Valley and Window of the World up 21.4% (to 3,530,000), 8.9% (3,050,000) and 12.8% (2,651,000) respectively. Happy Valley in Beijing, meanwhile, posted a 17.8% jump to 2,651,000. Over in Hong Kong, the five- year-old Disneyland eclipsed the established but expanding Ocean Park with 5.2 Vs 5.1 million guests. The new Universal Studios Singapore welcomed more than 2 million guests during its nine-month “soft opening” period. In Latin America, there was staggering 32.2% increase in attendance at Hopi Haro, São Paulo, Brazil, which welcomed almost 2 million (1,983,000) guests last year. There were also gains for Six Flags Mexico, number one with exactly 2 million, La Feria De Chapultepec in Mexico City (1,470,000), Fantasialandia in Santiago, Chile (1,470,000) and Brazil’s Beto Carrero World. Outside of Orlando, some of the world’s top-performing waterparks were once again in Asia, including China’s Chimelong Water Park in Guangzhou (1.8 million guests), Caribbean Bay and Ocean World in South Korea (1,736,000 and 1,375,000) and Sunway Lagoon in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (1 million). There was a 7.3 rise at Wet ‘n’ Wild Waterworld on the Gold Coast in Australia (1,175,000) and a 6.1% increase at Aquaventure in Dubai (1,040,000), making the Atlantis waterpark roughly a third busier than nearby Wild Wadi (690,000), boosted by guests staying at the Atlantis hotel/resort.


THE GLOBAL ATTRACTION ATTENDANCE REPORT


•For a collection of charts showing the top parks in North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and worldwide, as well as the world’s top 20 waterparks, see the special four-page pull out in the centre of this magazine.


JULY 2011


management, with great results for both the business and the consumer. You know the deal: book in advance for an off-peak flight and, if you’re lucky, it’ll cost you next to nothing. However, leave it to the last minute or catch a plane over a peak holiday period and you’ll pay hansomely for the privilege. Yield management is defined as,


PlayCenter in Brazil already operates yield management pricing


“The process of understanding, anticipating and influencing consumer behavior in order to maximize yield or profits from a fixed, perishable resource.”


These resources could be airline seats, hotel rooms, reservations – or admission income at a theme park or attraction. I have always said in our industry that we are a ”top of the line business” and there is no bottom line. If our turnstiles do not spin, neither does the in- park spending such as retail or food and beverage. We have to get people motivated to visit. In the future, we will need to do this even more due to the factors listed above, and also due to families changing their leisure patterns and lifestyles.


Our inventory is our attraction, and yield management involves strategic control of our inventory to sell it to the right customer at the right time and for the right price. The strategies and tactics employed are designed to improve profitability and, in our industry’s case, encourage more people to visit when we want and need them to, such as off-peak, via attractive pricing. Yield management focuses on maximizing expected revenues at lower periods of operation. Properly organised, it can also create new or higher spending among different visitor segments. Yield management requires analytic metrics, detailed market knowledge and supported computer systems. In today’s age of


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