Park News
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Merlin breaks £1 billion turnover barrier
Though trading conditions were tough for many of its existing operations in Europe, the opening of seven new attractions in Asia Pacific, North America and Northern Europe helped Merlin Entertainments achieve record turnover and attendance in 2012.
In announcing its financial results for the year ending 29 December 2012, the world’s second- largest visitor attraction revealed that its turnover was £1.074 billion ($1.5.€1.2m) with operating profit £258 million (($392m/€305m), an increase of 16.1 and 16.5% respectively over 2011’s figures. Like for like, excluding businesses owned and opened before January 2011, growth was 0.5 and 1%. “We are particularly pleased to have announced both record sales, which broke the £1
billion barrier for the first time, and a record number of visitors – 54 million,” highlights Merlin chief executive Nick Varney. “In Northern Europe our theme parks were hit by the wettest weather on record through all of our key trading periods while those in southern Europe felt the impact of the continued euro zone crisis. In the UK our attractions had to compete with the London Olympics – a £10 billion [$15bn/€12bn], ‘once in a lifetime’ event that attracted more than 10 million visitors in the middle of our peak season.”
Merlin now operates almost 100 attractions across four continents. New openings planned for the next 12 months include Legoland Discovery Centres in Toronto (Canada), Westchester (New York) and Oberhausen
(Germany), a Sea Life aquarium in Manchester (England), Madame Tussauds in Tokyo, and the new Berlin Dungeon attraction in the German capital. “The business continues to broaden its international footprint,” notes Varney, “diversifying irevenues and providing further exposure to faster growing economies in Asia Pacific and North America. All this means our iconic brands will attract more visitors in more locations around the hrough 2013 and we look forward to a challenging but exciting year.” The company is now preparing for a initial public offering (IPO) by 2014 and has chosen London as its preferred stock market listing location.
Kernels
It was so cold in much of Europe this spring that several parks were forced to delay the start of their season, including the German venues Belantis and Fort Fun, which had to clear large amounts of snow before it finally opened its gates to the public on 4 April – a week later than planned. For many of those park that did open on time, the Easter weekend was relatively quiet thanks to the single digit °C temperatures. It’s like spring had never sprung!
Connecticut's Quassy Amusement Park has announced that its transformation of the former Saturation Station into a fully fledged waterpark will be called Splash Away Bay.
Premier Rides has been chosen by Ocean Park to provide aftermarket ride support via its Premier Service division. Premier will work with the Hong Kong venue to incorporate new ride technology into some of its legacy attractions, as well as upgrading controls and braking technologies to ensure the rides can operate reliably and efficiently for many years to come.
Following the introduction last year of Despicable Me Minion Mayhem at Universal Orlando, the 3D ultra high definition movie motion-simulator adventure at Universal Florida will be repeated at Universal Studios Hollywood. The attractions is set top open in 2014.
Realm of the Lions
A taste of the Savannah has just come to central England. Realm of the Lions is the latest animal feature to be incorporated into the four-mile (6.5km) self-drive safari at West Midland Safari Park. The exhibit has been fully landscaped to create the appearance of savannah grassland and themed with boulders, plants and sculpted lion head rockwork from which a waterfall cascades into a pool below. Spanning almost seven-and-a-half acres, the exhibit will provide important and essential enrichment for the park’s pride of 13 African lions. The exhibit, which cost £750,000 ($1.35m/€880,000) to build, was designed in-house, built under the watchful eye of creative designer David Powner.
wmsp.co.uk 18
Theming and Animatronic Industries (TAA) has revealed that it is creating a major part of the theming at the new Turkish theme park Vialand, Turkey. The German company, with production facilities in Romania, is building a 25m-tall Viking ship and 21m Viking warrior for the park’s big Intamin water ride as well as a dragon sculpture that will cover the tunnel that the boats travel through. In addition TAA will create facades for Fun Zone Street, the Happy Farm and arches for several other rides. Eight of the largest rides have been chosen for express access using Lo-Q’s virtual queuing system.
South London newspaper the Wimbledon Guardian ran a fishy-sounding story recently about plans to turn Wimbledon Stadium site into a theme park called Wombledonia. Dedicated to the litter-collecting rodents that were stars of ‘80s British kids TV, the £1 billion ($1.5bn/€1.2bn) park would apparently be funded by Oligarch Oil Ltd, whose spokesperson “Apdilli Fay Soor” was quoted in the article. If that didn’t sound suspect enough, there was also a comment from “Wyn Dup-Merchant” and a rather crude artist’s impression. Published on 1 April, the story was of course an April fool’s joke. Read it yourself at
bit.ly/14hWi9O. Whilst the story failed to trick many online readers, it did fool, er, the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions (IAAPA), which duly provided a link for member in its News Flash e-newsletter. Oops!
APRIL 2013
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