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Why Pattaya is about to become Thailand’s waterpark hotspot
Billed as the largest themed waterpark in Southeast Asia, Ramayana Water Park will bring a fresh wave of family entertainment to the east coast of Thailand when it opens later this year
he 1,000 million baht ($33m/€26m) waterpark, funded by a Russian investor, will be located outside the popular beach resort of
Pattaya. Phase I will cover an area of around 160,000 square-metres, packed with lush landscaping and a package of up-to-the-minute WhiteWater attractions. Opening 365 days a year, the park will cater for up to 750,000 annual visitors according to chief operating officer Alan Mahony. Given the Australian industry veteran’s track record in building waterparks – this is the man who helped create global top 20 performers Sunway Lagoon (Malaysia), Chimelong Water Park and Beijing’s Happy Magic Watercube (China) – we have every reason to believe him. “The great thing about Pattaya,” Mahony tells Park
World, “is that you get more than one high season. You get the European tourists over Christmas and January, you’ve got the Thai school holidays in April and May (New Year period) and then in July and August you get all the Chinese and Asian tourists on their summer holidays. That’s three very defined seasons.”
Thai moviestar Chotika ‘Noey’ Wongvilas helped launch the waterpark’s logo last year – which seems as good a reason as any to include a picture of her here
Other waterparks are on the way (see panel, facing page), but Mahony believes the lack of any other international quality facilities at present, a local population of over a million, triple that number of foreign tourists and a further six million or more in the Bangkok metropolitan area make Ramayana Water Park a sound investment. “Bangkok is about an hour-and-a-half away and will be a huge market for us, and there’s really still no entertainment like this in the local market,” he offers. “In Asia, because of the low operating costs, you are looking at a three to four year return on investment (ROI) if you do it right. I always examine things very realistically, and even in the very worse case scenario, you are still looking at a six or seven year ROI. When the investor looked at my study, he could just see the numbers add up.”
As this rendering shows, Ramayana Water Park will be extensively
landscaped Liquid Gold
Stanislav Badekha, president of Sibirskoe Zoloto (Siberian Gold), was alerted to the potential of Pattaya after holidaying there with his family. About one million fellow Russians do the same each year, just as they have for many years in Turkey. But why, Badekha asked himself, weren’t there the waterparks for them to enjoy just as there in resorts up and down the
Turkish coast? Badekha will put up 50% of the project’s total investment . The rest will come from local banks. “It’s been tough,”
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The legend of Ramayana T
admits Mahony, “because the banks didn’t really understand what a waterpark is and how it earns money, but now we have the support of the tourism association, which means we get seven years’ tax relief and the import of all goods tax free. That’s really important.” Located in Na Jomtien, about 7km from the beach, Ramayana Water Park will form part of an up and coming tourist area that already includes a giant Buddha statue and a popular winery. The park’s name, in case you were wondering, is taken from an epic story of Indian origin, which most Thai children study at school. This will loosely underpin the park’s theming, but a lot of attention will also be paid to exploiting the park’s natural setting at the foot of a hill overlooking a lake. “We are pretending it’s an ancient site, so there’ll be all these relics lying around, but we are building a brand new cosmopolitan Thai waterpark on top,” explains Mahony. “What we don’t want to do is over- theme it. I’ve seen too many waterparks go crazy with the theming, and then the maintenance associated with it just destroys them. To me it’s all about the landscaping; we really want to use the natural contours of the hill and create a forest-like environment with lots of shaded areas, cabanas, the lot. In Bangkok, and a lot of Asian cities, people just want to get out into nature and relax.” As well acting as one of the key suppliers, WhiteWater also produced the park’s initial masterplan. Appointed as local project manager is ACH Management, working with EECWSP architects and consultant engineers M&E and C&S.
For those who like to party (buy a bottle of vodka instead)
Whilst Pattaya remains a popular place for tourists and expatriates who like to “party” (overtaking Phuket as Thailand’s most visited destination), Ramayana Water Park will be located away from the bars, nightclubs and massage parlours that populate the main resort area. “Not long ago, establishing a family-oriented theme park on the outskirts of Pattaya would have been a bit like building a petting zoo at the gates of Guantanamo Bay. How times have changed,” noted Southeast Asia Globe reporter Steve Finch last October. “Ramayana Water Park is going to help transform
Pattaya,” adds chief operating officer Alan Mahony, adding that high-spending families from Bangkok have been identified as key to the waterpark’s success – rather than the Russian tourists investor Stanislav Badekha was initially intending to target. “There’s a lot of packet tours coming in for two weeks on $600 deals, then going to the 7/11 and buying bottles of vodka,” observes Mahony. “They are not the people we want.”
MARCH 2013
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