Waterpark Profile
Istria’s aquatic explosion Croatia’s waterpark hotspot
When it opened in summer
2014, Istralandia was billed as Croatia’s first waterpark but now, after just one
season, it’s expanded and been joined by a new
competitor less than 30km away. Park World profiles
the two parks cooling down holidaymakers on the country’s scenic Istria
peninsula, starting with a first hand account from
Istralandia manager Paolo Kovacic
Istralandia I
BELOW: Foam parties are part of Istralandia’s events programme
n the Mediterranean and European market, the phenomenon of aqua parks has been present already for over two decades. Parks on the riverias of Spain,
Portugal, France, Italy and Turkey prove that new adventures emotions and challenges are sought by the holidaymaker who is no longer satisfied with passive vacations. As low cost air carriers make new destinations easily accessible, the fight to keep guests and acquire new ones is fiercer than ever. The idea for Istralandia was developed following the directions of the Croatian tourism masterplan, which emphasised the lack of offerings in the sports and entertainment segment. Before opening our aqua park, we visited over 60 parks
in Europe and around the world, and examined concepts from designers in Spain, Italy, Poland, Turkey and Croatia before we reached our final design, completed by the office of Boris Zuliani from Izola, Slovenia. This research was necessary keeping in mind the fact that Croatia still didn't have any real aqua parks at the time, only spas, wellness centres and thermal pools. Although some of these had a small waterpark component, it was intended for use only during the summer season. Istralandia is located only five kilometres away from the coast, at the Nova Vas exit of the Istrian Ypsilon highway, between Novigrad and Brtonigla. The main reason for this location is that our visitors can find us really easily, and can get to us fast from any part of Istria, Slovenia or Italy. The company Polin was chosen to supply out waterslides
and attractions due to their huge and respectable reference list which includes 2,500 projects in 93 countries around the world. We also liked their resin transfer moulding (RTM) fibreglass production technique, which produces a high shine and even width on both the outer and inner sides of the slides.
In our park we have a lot of popular attractions. The
adrenaline lovers like the Space Rocket and the Free Fall, and families are more likely attracted to the Family Rafting. Our main target market is families, as well as groups of
28 OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2015
young people who are looking for fun, adrenaline and to relax. We had a really large number of visitors in season 2014,
so we had to expand this season to reduce the queues and increase visitor satisfaction. This summer was extremely sunny. We had 180 000 visitors, and we are satisfied with the progress we made. We had new competition this year from Aquacolors, but competition is not always a bad thing. For us it was just an extra motivation to do our best. Istria has enough visitors for both of us and in fact our attendance was up by 38%. We believe that the high number of sunny days in combination with a powerful marketing and three new attractions have resulted in this success. Within the next three years we want to expand Istralandia
by a further 60,000 square metres with the creation of additional unique attractions which we are already working on in collaboration with our suppliers. Along with the aqua park, our plans for the future includes a camping resort to complement our existing events programme, bowling, badminton and beach volleyball. Then our tourist destination will be finally realised!
Istralandia.hr
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