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ASSOCIATION OF PLAY INDUSTRIES
Changing Times for
the Indoor Sector
The Indoor Play Sector
Of course soft play systems supplied by product ranges accordingly with this new
is certainly an ever
members of the Association of Play demand.
changing market place.
Industries (API) had been around for many The early privately owned sites that
years before then, in nurseries, pubs and opened were mostly housed in industrial
The size, quality and other corporate facilities but the prospect
units and were crammed full of play
quantity of sites has
of an all year round adventure play equipment not showing much
moved on a long way
attraction that wasn’t subject to the consideration for adult comfort and ways
since the first stand alone
vagaries of the British weather, was an to generate secondary spend from young
attractive one. Local facility voids were families. Members of the API indoor
privately run play centres
filled by local entrepreneurs and so at the sector invested in new products to fit the
opened as children’s
turn of the nineties a concept that had modular frame and eventually became
leisure attractions in the
begun in special schools and children’s more experienced in recommending ways
late eighties.
hospitals had started to attract the for operators to start optimising their
interest of the commercial sector and soft income and get a better return on
indoor play manufacturers enlarged their investment. According to Graham ‹
API Directory 2009/10 17
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