Front Gate
parkworld-online.com
Figures of Fun
90
years – age of Blackpool Pleasure Beach’s Big Dipper. The British park held a birthday party for the ride on 23 August
8,000
average daily attendance this summer at Nigloland, Dolancourt, France
10,786
new daily attendance record set on 31 July at Toverland in the Netherlands. The previous record was 6,509
22,000
new daily attendance record set at Walygator Parc near Metz, France, on 15 August, when the park stayed open until 11pm
50,000,000
number of riders on the London Eye since it opened in March 2000 until 21 August 2013
BigQuestion
Other than games, food and beverage etc, what activities do you make an additional charge for, and how do they improve the guest experience or help the bottom line?
Anthony Catanoso, Steel Pier (New Jersey), USA: On Steel Pier we have two separate paid attractions, the Sling Shot Rocket and Helicopter Tour. It's amazing how the popularity of both grows from year to year. The Sling Shot is an intense ride that offers video recapture of your experience as well as a T-shirt option, or a video and two T-shirts package for $55. Or you can have the video put on a USB flash drive that fits around your wrist. The helicopter tour, the only one on the New Jersey shore, is highly recommended for a family adventure. Any additional revenue stream is critical to the bottom line in these economic
conditions. You can't always depend on attendance increasing for a whole host of reasons that may be beyond your control, so the only way to increase revenue is to offer more options and services to your customer to increase the park's per-capita spending.
Andy Keeling, Ferrari World Abu Dhabi, UAE: We recently added a number of impromptu activities that guests can enjoy in between the rides including some midway games, with a motoring theme of course, and a photo opportunity with a Ferrari California car. The latter was a direct response to requests from visitors who said the one thing that was missing from the park was the chance to have their picture taken inside a Ferrari.
Carl Lum, Busch Gardens Williamsburg, USA: Behind-the-scenes tours are a popular option. Learning how coasters work on our Roller Coaster Insider tour or discovering the thrill of working with animals in our Wolf Up Close and Birds of Prey tours are one-of-a-kind experiences that our guests appreciate. These types of activities add to the park experience, and in my opinion are well worth the effort to create.
Peter van der Schans, Toverland, The Netherlands: This year we started a new merchandise line based on the Dwervel creatures who live in our new Magigal Valley. Also a big hit is our new motor driving licence, which guests can buy at the exit of our motorbike coaster, Boosterbike. This licence includes an on-ride photo of the guest. We also installed automatic terminals for our on-ride photos, where guests can e-mail their pictures for a low price. These terminals are a godsend for slow days since they don’t need any additional staff to run them. We don’t have any paid attractions in the park; just a few automatic games. In fact we have a survival course that guests can enjoy for free, whereas in lots of parks these are paid attractions.
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