• ℹ️ Heads up...

    This is a popular topic that is fast moving Guest - before posting, please ensure that you check out the first post in the topic for a quick reminder of guidelines, and importantly a summary of the known facts and information so far. Thanks.

2025: General Discussion

GaryH said:
Just saw an advert on Facebook for an Alton Towers Seasonal pass for 3 months from £59

Weirdly though it mentions it on their website but when you click the buy link there is nothing to be found

They must be really struggling for visitor numbers this year. Sandbrooke did a vlog on Sunday and he couldn’t get over how quiet it was there.
Click to expand...

Based on the fact they have been given more budget for fireworks I would guess they are doing quite well for guest attendance.
 
But lower MAP sales would surely mean less visitors. Add to this the various offers we have seen for the hotels lately and the eating packages seems to suggest income is down.
 
It's only bits and pieces I've heard on the radio etc in the last month or so but it sounds like hospitality and tourism has struggled a bit in general in the UK over the past months . This would obviously have impacted Towers also IF true. Even if people aren't necessarily cutting back on trips in general, apparently they're making their own catering choices in order to off-set the cost of the holiday/outing overall.

Again, that's not just Towers. These are trends I'm hearing relayed from family members in different places as well as the bits mentioned on the radio at the beginning of this message. Food and drink is obviously a large income stream in this industry though so if more and more people are making their own plans due to the cost of living it has the potential to have a large impact on businesses. Doesn't help when you have a food provider that is taking the absolute p**s though, which they are.
 
Maybe with the passes, things like the removal of the Blackpool attractions might be impacting sales? With attractions going from the pass, they do now represent weaker value for money. And if you’re outside London and the South East, the pass is probably a significantly weaker proposition without the likes of Bear Grylls and the Blackpool attractions.

It’s very possible that pass sales are doing poorly while the parks themselves are actually doing quite well. The two are most probably correlated to some extent, but that won’t necessarily be a perfect relationship.
 
Just thinking out loud, so humour and correct me where applicable. It would be interesting if we could ever find out the profit/loss of Alton Towers in particular in the past couple of years. I expect they make a profit. Having said that, maybe it's not as much as in previous years due to various costs.

Then, if we were to suppose that it wasn't really worth holding onto for an operator like Merlin, especially with unwanted ongoing costs with the Gardens and the Towers ruins etc, who would want to take the lease off their hands (assuming Leslau is expecting his money for x number of years ahead)? I suppose a buyer would have to take on the lease as part of a wider portfolio of Merlin companies or even Towers by itself if anyone was so brave?
 
Matt N said:
Maybe with the passes, things like the removal of the Blackpool attractions might be impacting sales? With attractions going from the pass, they do now represent weaker value for money. And if you’re outside London and the South East, the pass is probably a significantly weaker proposition without the likes of Bear Grylls and the Blackpool attractions.

It’s very possible that pass sales are doing poorly while the parks themselves are actually doing quite well. The two are most probably correlated to some extent, but that won’t necessarily be a perfect relationship.
Click to expand...
Good point. Not sure it would have hit their sales as immediately so far as to have caused this so soon, but I think you make a good prediction with regards to the Merlin pass. There was hardly much of an offering up north other than Towers, Bear Grylls and Blackpool and without Blackpool etc a lot of people might not bother with the pass anymore as that may have just about made it worthwhile.

Edit - Double post. I will accept my punishment.
 
£59 for 3 months unlimited visits (barring about 5 specific dates) seems like an absolutely cracking deal to be honest, even if it doesn’t include the 20% off or the free parking.

That said, most of the likely beneficiaries probably already have an annual pass of some description, so I’d expect take up to be low.
 
BarryZola said:
Just thinking out loud, so humour and correct me where applicable. It would be interesting if we could ever find out the profit/loss of Alton Towers in particular in the past couple of years. I expect they make a profit. Having said that, maybe it's not as much as in previous years due to various costs.

Then, if we were to suppose that it wasn't really worth holding onto for an operator like Merlin, especially with unwanted ongoing costs with the Gardens and the Towers ruins etc, who would want to take the lease off their hands (assuming Leslau is expecting his money for x number of years ahead)? I suppose a buyer would have to take on the lease as part of a wider portfolio of Merlin companies or even Towers by itself if anyone was so brave?
Click to expand...
Nick Leslau actually sold of the land a few years ago to a company, I believe, are called TDR Capital. They pretty much get a guaranteed income from owning the land, but every asset on the land is owned by Merlin itself and said lease was also extended around the time the land itself changed hands.

Heritage stuff to the best of my knowledge was owned by Merlin itself, so isn’t included in the deal. The land sale is purely theoretical and any transfer of operations would just transfer to new owners. But obviously Merlin wouldn’t profit from appreciation of land value in that time, like selling other parks might have.

There’s no indication yet that Merlin would sell-off Resort Theme Parks, and recent news suggests they’d rather offload the non-cluster parts of the Midway business and outsource some aspects of park operations that they deem non-critical (Ents, F&B) in exchange for focus towards other areas of growth and expansion.

Looking worldwide the only theme park chain that’s going from strength-to-strength is Universal. All of the other major operators just seem to be trying to keep afloat at the moment. Regional theme park chains tends to do well when middle-income households are doing well, and that doesn’t seem to be the case at the moment.

Makes me wonder how they’ll all cope long-term when shrinking birth rates and population collapse cause more serious shifts in the economic structure of our society.
 
Mick said:
£59 for 3 months unlimited visits (barring about 5 specific dates) seems like an absolutely cracking deal to be honest, even if it doesn’t include the 20% off or the free parking.

That said, most of the likely beneficiaries probably already have an annual pass of some description, so I’d expect take up to be low.
Click to expand...
Not really, it is only a few weeks since a full year basic pass was eighty quid.
Not that much of a deal if you are a regular visitor.

And there are two reasons why people aren't visiting the same...
The offering is not as good as it used to be...not everyone does coasters, the "other attractions" list has got shorter and shorter.
The large majority of working families have had to tighten their belts, Merlin do not offer the value they used to.
 
Bert2theSpark said:
Looking worldwide the only theme park chain that’s going from strength-to-strength is Universal. All of the other major operators just seem to be trying to keep afloat at the moment. Regional theme park chains tends to do well when middle-income households are doing well, and that doesn’t seem to be the case at the moment.
Click to expand...

Plopsaland recently announced record turnover and the Plopsa group seem to be investing heavily across their portfolio as they expand their offerings.
 
BarryZola said:
It's only bits and pieces I've heard on the radio etc in the last month or so but it sounds like hospitality and tourism has struggled a bit in general in the UK over the past months . This would obviously have impacted Towers also IF true. Even if people aren't necessarily cutting back on trips in general, apparently they're making their own catering choices in order to off-set the cost of the holiday/outing overall.

Again, that's not just Towers. These are trends I'm hearing relayed from family members in different places as well as the bits mentioned on the radio at the beginning of this message. Food and drink is obviously a large income stream in this industry though so if more and more people are making their own plans due to the cost of living it has the potential to have a large impact on businesses. Doesn't help when you have a food provider that is taking the absolute p**s though, which they are.
Click to expand...

I think this is a thing. My tourist town has been extremely quiet this year so far compared to previous years. Blessing if you want to get to your local supermarket at the weekend but not great at all for local business
 
Almost as if there's still a Cost of Living issues going on.

I spent Father's Day at Download Festival, which also could've eaten into local visitors.

Intrigued to see how busy tomorrow will be given the forecast.
 
BarryZola said:
It's only bits and pieces I've heard on the radio etc in the last month or so but it sounds like hospitality and tourism has struggled a bit in general in the UK over the past months . This would obviously have impacted Towers also IF true. Even if people aren't necessarily cutting back on trips in general, apparently they're making their own catering choices in order to off-set the cost of the holiday/outing overall.

Again, that's not just Towers. These are trends I'm hearing relayed from family members in different places as well as the bits mentioned on the radio at the beginning of this message. Food and drink is obviously a large income stream in this industry though so if more and more people are making their own plans due to the cost of living it has the potential to have a large impact on businesses. Doesn't help when you have a food provider that is taking the absolute p**s though, which they are.
Click to expand...

I agree with your broader post. Although the logic of food sales are down so let’s give more people lower priced admission doesn’t quite make sense. If they know secondary spend is proving harder, why offer a deal that entirely depends on secondary send to make significant profits. If people get the £59 pass and as you say bring their own sandwiches, after two visits the park is losing money versus the regular gate price.
 
Part of the gambit would be that the customer thinks "that's good value" pays the £60 and then only attends once or twice on the pass, due to other commitments.

Equally, if the customer comes three times, that will still be making Merlin some profit (there's a reason why the cheapest tickets Merlin offer sit around the £19 mark). And, if it encourages a customer to come more than they otherwise would have done, Merlin is also almost guaranteed to make some additional revenue via parking fees and has effectively locked in that profit earlier.

Merlin's strategy almost never seems to be to maximise Return on Investment. Their strategy has always seemed to be that any ROI, no matter how small, is the goal.
 
jon81uk said:
I agree with your broader post. Although the logic of food sales are down so let’s give more people lower priced admission doesn’t quite make sense. If they know secondary spend is proving harder, why offer a deal that entirely depends on secondary send to make significant profits. If people get the £59 pass and as you say bring their own sandwiches, after two visits the park is losing money versus the regular gate price.
Click to expand...
Merlin seem to be going along the principle of "food sales are down so let's put the food prices up to make up for the shortfall".

We're really at the point now where shrinkflation can't go any further so it's all price rises which just pushes people away from the product on offer.

In theory I think the £59 pass could be good value if you can make use of it especially if it's something you got free with your Tesco vouchers.
 
dave___ said:
Merlin seem to be going along the principle of "food sales are down so let's put the food prices up to make up for the shortfall".
Click to expand...
Part of the issue is that Aramark now set the prices and they need to pass whatever share of profits to Merlin as well as making their own. That.s been one of the biggest things driving the higher prices, now two companies are trying to profit on food.

dave___ said:
In theory I think the £59 pass could be good value if you can make use of it especially if it's something you got free with your Tesco vouchers.
Click to expand...

The pass is good value to many guests who will visit at least 2-3 times, that doesn't mean its a good business move.

Squiggs said:
Equally, if the customer comes three times, that will still be making Merlin some profit (there's a reason why the cheapest tickets Merlin offer sit around the £19 mark).
Click to expand...
Cheapest theme park tickets are £29 (less 25% with a Kelloggs or similar voucher) aren't they? Not sure its possible to get theme park admission for £19?

Squiggs said:
Merlin is also almost guaranteed to make some additional revenue via parking fees and has effectively locked in that profit earlier.
Click to expand...
This is probably the thing, a lot of the profit in most visits to the parks now is the parking fee.
 
Seriously don’t get why people think attendance is down. Merlin would not have given them budget for Friday of fireworks if attendance was down. It was around the same time last year that Merlin cut the opening times for Towers mid season because attendance was poor, if anything the mood music suggests the opposite.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top