PROFILE
See page 24 for interviews with Merlin’s top team
Nick Varney
With Legoland Florida underway, numerous midway attractions being developed globally and speculation about its future ownership, Merlin Entertainments is rarely out of the news. Chief executive Nick Varney reveals all to Kathleen Whyman
W
hen I last interviewed Nick Varney in January 2007, his fi rst words were, “I have something
rather exciting to tell you”. The exciting news was Merlin Entertainments’ acquisi- tion of The Tussauds Group, making the company the second largest visitor attrac- tion company in the world after Disney. So when I meet the chief executive again in January 2010 and he tells me, “I have something very exciting to tell you, but I can’t just yet”, frustrated doesn’t even come close to describing how I felt. Luckily for me, and the rest of the attrac- tions industry, I only had to wait another week until Varney was able to reveal that Merlin Entertainments had bought the Cypress Gardens theme park and was transforming it into Legoland Florida. “Florida is the biggest family destination
on the planet so it’s completely logical that we should be there,” says Varney. “We’d been looking at central Florida, as that’s the real hotspot, but in 2008 were made aware that Cypress Gardens, which is only 40 minutes drive from Disney, might be available. We went down there and
saw this unbelievably, breathtakingly beautiful location with historical botani- cal gardens.” Merlin’s portfolio includes Alton Towers, the 1,000-year-old Warwick Castle, Gardaland and Legoland Windsor, all of which sit within beautiful grounds, so Cypress Gardens had “that something spe- cial” that really appeals to Merlin. In addition to this, Cypress Gardens
offers a waterpark and theme park, which have benefi tted from more than US$140m (£94m, 103m) investment in the last fi ve years, including the installation of several rides. So why did the park close down in the fi rst place and isn’t Varney worried about suffering the same fate?
OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS
“The park was getting around a million visitors a year but needed a few hundred thousand more to be viable,” explains Varney. “We’ve factored in that if you’re 40 minutes away from Orlando and have to drive down, then you’re not going to get as many visitors as if you were in the centre of town. But, for us, to buy everything it offered for under $25m (£16.8m, 18.4m)
and convert it into a Legoland park, which we know from the success of our site in California is hugely popular, was a very good opportunity. Normally if you’re look- ing to establish a theme park, you’ve got to fi nd a site, pay for that site and get all the planning, zoning and other regulatory approval, which, even with a following wind, might take three years. Then you’ve got to build it, which takes another three years. We’ll have ours open by the end of 2011. That’s a fairly compelling argument.” Legoland California’s success has led
to the park being awarded the title of Best Park for Children in the US by American
trade paper Amusement T
oday six years
in a row. Varney’s extremely confi dent that Florida will do even better (Florida parks traditionally have higher visitor numbers than their Californian counterparts) despite being a 40-minute drive away from the heart of the activity. “We did a great deal of very detailed market research last sum- mer in Florida and Orlando and 80 per cent of people in our target market said they’d come to Legoland as part of their holiday in Florida,” says Varney. “Anyone who thinks that a company like
Merlin, with a successful history of driving very strong returns on the capital it spends and of driving into new markets, would have done this with anything other than its eyes wide open, doesn’t know us very well,” he continues. “I don’t just think it’s exciting and a great opportunity, I think it’s a bloody good deal for Merlin.” Destination resort positioning is part
of Merlin’s long-term strategy. While getting the theme park up and running
After building its portfolio in Europe, including Italy’s Gardaland (pictured left) Merlin hopes to continue to build its profi le in North America
20
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AM 2 2010 ©cybertrek 2010
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