Outdoor Adventure Play
something exciting and challenging, so you might put something in that involves height and you can identify that people might fall off and hurt themselves – so your control measure might be barriers, or if there is a rope ladder they might not fall from the ladder, they might be more at risk at the platform at the top, so you might barrier there. “That general principle is going to
apply across a playground, except a judgement has to be made to ignore the trivial. You need knowledge of how children or users are going to use that space in order to work out the risks and decide responsibly what is trivial and what is not. “What’s really important with play and where it differs from an occupational work setting, is that play, risk and challenge brings benefits, and so it is important that the control measures don’t swamp the benefits. Again, it’s a judgement that has to be made that if the benefit outweighs the risk, great; if the risk outweighs the benefit, something needs adjusting.”
Growth? KristallTurm has been working in adventure play since 2010, with its space-saving hexagonally-structured KristallTurm high rope course inspired by the shape of ice crystals. The company has seen first-hand growth in the sector; Sara Kern told us: “Even though Europe was our first market and is still a stable and important market for us, the US market is growing rapidly. “But we have had projects also in
markets you don’t expect, for example Cuba or Nigeria. Currently we are working on projects in Japan and Israel.”
Location, location, location Sara concluded that where you are is really rather important for your success: “Location is the key to successful operations in any attraction business. We offer our potential clients to analyze the location in terms of potential clients, competitors and so on. The other important factor is to operate the business professionally, with the highest standards in marketing, safety and guest relations. We also help our clients to install standards at their site, for example by offering staff training and support in creating a marketing plan.” Lori Gunthorp, Marketing Manager
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What’s interesting is that the growth is coming partly from areas that want to expand their appeal to year-round. “The demand for free time activities that are exciting, sporty and for every age is steadily growing. For example ski areas: They are looking for summer activities because the winters are getting shorter and there will be less snow. A high ropes course is a good facility for them to reach their guests even in the summer.” Have they spotted any trends in the
sector, given their global customer base? Yes, it seems so. Sara added: “Our customer range is very broad and reaches from hotels to theme parks, sports facilities and wildlife parks or even individual entrepreneurs. We also notice that indoor high ropes courses are becoming more popular, especially in the UAE. Indoor projects are often customized, but also offer good ROI to the investor, since the facility can be operated independently from weather conditions.
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for Skytrail in the U.S., says that the company is seeing great variety in its customer base going forward. She said: “34% of our inquiries received so far in 2017 have been for outdoor facilities ranging in industries from adventure and sports facilities, amusement parks, public recreation parks and water parks.” Iplayco’s Scott Forbes agrees that location is important, but adds that other aspects of an operator’s approach can be equally important. He told us: “Location will always be important but focus relating to location should always lean towards access which would include parking and proximity to other known public areas. Once the correct location is found, the next big hurdle is to build a facility that is in line with your business plan and correctly market it which is where a company such as ours comes in. The final and probably the most significant thing is to create and deliver customer satisfaction, to make it a daily goal in your facility.” Iplayco has also seen growth in their
business; they design and build FECs, from smaller children’s facilities to larger resorts and theme park-style venues, and also manufacture and install the play equipment for the facilities. Scott said: “we have seen increasing interest, specifically adventure play of any type (indoor or outdoor). People of all ages are always looking for some type of new interactive activities that challenge them physically and mentally. A good example of this trend is the interest in Air Trek and Rope Courses which are elevated activities that translate both into outdoor and indoor use. Recently we have started to see an increase in
March 2017
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