Park News
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More water!
PortAventura’s €10 million waterpark expansion
feature.
The project is part of a €75 million ($100m) investment plan for
The Sesame Street boat
The leading Spanish theme park resort PortAventura is to spend €10 million expanding its Costa Caribe waterpark, including a record- breaking waterslide and a Sesame Street-themed
Särkänniemi
introduces new IP After opening Angry Birds Land last season, Finland’s Särkänniemi Adventure Park is to introduce another Finnish intellectual property for 2013. But unlike those app-based animated birds popular with smartphone and tablet users around the globe, the new addition to the park in Tampere will have a distinctly more regional appeal.
Särkänniemi
Koiramäki will be a new 10,000 square metre area, recreating scenes from the Koiramäki (‘Doghill’) books by children’s author Mauri Kunnas. At a cost of around €5million, it will represent one of the most expensive additions to the park since the turn of the century. As well as miniature buildings and dog characters familiar to readers of the books, visitors will also be able to meet a selection of farmyard animals kept to first-class welfare standards. US firm Bruce D Robinson, designer of Angry Birds Land, will be collaborating on the project with Leena Carels and local architects and contractors. Completion is due in time for the start of the season on April 27.
särkä
nniemi.com maurikunnas.net
the wider resort approved in November by owner Investindustrial, which has identified waterpark facilities as key to foreign tourists choosing PortAventura as a holiday destination. As such, an additional 14,000 square metres will be added, taking the total area of Costa Caribe to 50,000 sq m.
Opened in 2002, the waterpark – or ”Aquatic
Park” – functions as a second gate to the main PortAventura theme park, as well as a driver of business for the resort’s four on-site hotels. It will reopen this May with new attractions including a
Underland
This spring, visitors to Lotte World in Seoul will find a new world to discover beneath the rest of the park. Located in a space formerly occupied by the Lotte shopping mall, Underland promises to be a colourful new world home to characters from the popular Korean fairytale Ogre’s Magic Club. It’s the latest themed area to be developed by the Goddard Group as part of a multi-project creative partnership with the Lotte Group. “Up to this point, no other theme park in
Korea has taken advantage of our country’s rich culture of myths and legends,” notes Lotte World manager of attraction development, Ashley Choi. “We see the launch of Underland as a big opportunity to build upon a popular story and characters already well ingrained within the public consciousness.” Featuring an interactive XD Theatre by
Triotech, along with four new food and beverage locations, phase one is set to increase Lotte World’s total area by over 22,000 square feet. It also introduces a significant number of new characters to Lotte World’s family of mascots, not to mention additional merchandising opportunities.
12-storey, 55º freefall slide – the highest in Europe – plus a multi-bump slide, six-lane mat racer, tropical adult pool and new children’s pool featuring a Sesame-Street pirate ship and four slides just for the little ones. Fresh theming will include more than 50 species of plants and palms to create an authentic Caribbean vibe, providing a space that is as relaxing as it is adventurous. A new snack bar is also planned.
portaventura.es/aquatic-park
SeaWorld Parks launch mobile
websites SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment has launched mobile websites for its three SeaWorld and two Busch Gardens properties in the United States, allowing fans of the parks to plan their trips and buy tickets from the palm of their hands wherever they are.
Added geo-location capabilities mean that when a visitor is close to one of the venues and connects to
the website on their phone, it will immediately default to provide driving directions. Once the guests is actually in the park, the site will then default to a map of the venue, with details of added activities, offers and promotions based on their location. Neat, huh? “These mobile sites have been in development for several months and we are excited about the incredibly positive response we’ve already seen from guests,” notes Anne Fischer, SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment’s director of interactive marketing. "With ever- increasing mobile traffic to our parks, guests can expect more exciting mobile websites, products, apps and systems designed to make their lives more convenient in the near future."
seaworldparks.com FEBRUARY 2013 11
A sketch of the new expansion
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