www.parkworld-online.com Mohsen Saraji
www.parkworld-online.com Mohsen Saraji
What may matter more is who they are with, what is happening that day, where they can spend time, what has changed, what they can eat, and whether the destination has become part of their regular leisure life.
That suggests five useful questions for
developers: 1.
What gives guests a reason to return next month?
2. Which parts of the destination can change wiitthout major construction?
3. Where can guests create their own social experience rather than only follow a prescribed attraction sequence?
4.
How do food, retail and events strengthen the identity of the destination rather than simply monetise footfall?
5. What happens when the headline attractions are no longer new? These questions do not diminish the
Can a seasonal overlay transform its atmosphere without rebuilding it?
These spaces can easily be dismissed as secondary public realm. In reality, they may become some of the most flexible assets in the destination.
A ride generally has a defined function. A well-designed social space can support
dozens.
Programming should begin before opening day
are being developed on new sites rather than inherited from older amusement models, this creates an unusual opportunity: the wider experience ecosystem can be planned from the beginning.
Design the spaces between attractions
This transition changes the importance of the spaces between rides. Amusement park design rightly spends enormous effort on attraction capacity, queues, circulation, back-of-house systems, safety and guest distribution. But if a park is expected to become a
repeatable social destination, another category of space becomes strategically important: places where nothing compulsory needs to happen. Where can guests comfortably stay without
queuing? Where can different generations spend time together? What happens after dinner?
Where can live entertainment appear without disrupting the operation of the park?
Can an area work differently in the morning, afternoon and evening?
OCTOBER 2026 62 Design for the fiftieth visit
Opening day is usually designed around novelty; the fiftieth visit cannot be. By then, guests know where the major rides are. They understand the layout. Surprise works differently.
The same principle applies to programming. Too often, events and seasonal experiences are considered primarily as an operational or marketing layer after the physical destination has been designed. But if programming is expected to generate repeat visits, the infrastructure needs to support it. That means thinking about power, lighting, staging, storage, temporary installations, crowd movement, food service, flexible furniture and multiple operating scenarios early in the design process.
A large plaza is not necessarily a
programmable plaza. A beautiful outdoor area is not automatically capable of supporting an event. And a destination that requires major construction every time it needs to feel new has not truly been designed for change. The goal should be to allow the same physical infrastructure to produce different experiences over time.
importance of rides - they put rides into a more resilient system.
The amusement park is becoming an entertainment platform The future amusement park will still need
excellent attractions. People will continue to seek speed, spectacle, storytelling, play and shared family experiences. But a great ride can create a visit. It cannot, by itself, create every reason to return.
The stronger model is an ecosystem in
which attractions generate visits, social spaces generate dwell time, food and retail deepen the experience, programming creates renewal and hospitality extends the stay. For developers, this means moving beyond the traditional distinction between the core attraction and everything that supports it. For operators, it means recognising that repeat visitation can be designed long before the marketing campaign begins. And for designers, it means thinking not only about what a destination contains on opening day, but how it can continue to behave years later.
The amusement park is not disappearing; it is becoming something larger.
You can still build great rides. You just can’t build only an amusement park anymore.
Mohsen Saraji is the founder and CEO of SARAAJ and a destination experience strategist working across themed entertainment, leisure destinations and experience-led developments. His work explores how storytelling, social behaviour, programming, food, retail and operations can be integrated into coherent destination experiences, with a particular focus on emerging markets and the Middle East.
OCTOBER 2026 59
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