Why do the UK’s smaller theme parks seem to struggle more than similarly sized equivalents abroad?

Hi guys. The recent discussion surrounding the possible removal of Apocalypse from Drayton Manor got me thinking about something; Drayton Manor has been struggling a bit (or at least had been until Looping Group purchased the park) for quite a few years now. However, it was revealed when Looping Group purchased the park last year that 1.2 million guests still visited the park in 2019. That seemed like a surprisingly large number to me given Drayton Manor’s well-documented struggles throughout the latter half of the 2010s.

It also surprised me because there are a number of parks abroad that get smaller visitor figures, but seem to have a far more prosperous future ahead of them, and are investing in things that if in the UK, would arguably give the bigger players a run for their money.

Take, for instance, Plopsaland de Panne. In 2021, they are opening Ride to Happiness, a Mack Xtreme Spinning Coaster that is making enthusiasts from across the world eager to book plane tickets to Belgium when travel restrictions ease (well, that and Kondaa at Walibi Belgium, but that’s besides the point). This comes only 4 years after they opened Heidi the Ride, a GCI wooden rollercoaster, and they seem to have been making fairly hefty investments in between these two coasters, such as into a large hotel. In terms of visitor figures, I get the impression they’re fairly similar to Drayton Manor’s, if not possibly lower. Admittedly, Plopsaland de Panne may not be the best example to use, given that they have the backing of Studio 100, but still; for a park that only gets ~1-1.5m guests per year, a Mack Xtreme Spinning Coaster is a big-bucks investment!

Another example I could cite is Toverland. In 2018, they invested a substantial amount of money into Fenix, a B&M wing coaster, alongside Avalon and Port Laguna. This wasn’t too long after Maximus Blitz Bahn in 2015 (I think?) and not an eternity after they built Magische Vallei and Dwervelwind in 2012. They are also allegedly thinking of building a hotel in the near future. If in the UK, this level of investment would almost rival a major park like Alton Towers or Thorpe Park as opposed to a smaller, mid-size park. But as far as I’m aware, Toverland is still yet to hit the magic milestone of 1 million guests.

I’d be here all day if I cited every example in Europe, but you get my basic point.

Even if you leave Europe and go stateside, there are similar examples of flourishing smaller theme parks over in the USA. Take a park like Holiday World, for instance; they can’t get much more than 1 million guests, but they have a world-renowned selection of wooden roller coasters, a world-renowned waterpark in Splashin’ Safari, and didn’t long build a huge B&M launched wing coaster in Thunderbird. Or a park like Lagoon; they’ve cranked out some really wacky-looking custom installations over the last few years that are sometimes utterly huge in size for a park of Lagoon’s scale (Cannibal is an absolutely monstrous coaster, and the upcoming Primordial looks pretty large-scale too), as well as refurbishing their classic wooden roller coaster Roller Coaster, and I can’t imagine they get a huge number of visitors. Also, take somewhere like Kentucky Kingdom; I can’t imagine they get many more visitors, if any, than somewhere like Oakwood or Pleasurewood Hills in the UK, but they seem to be cranking out coasters every few years (Storm Chaser in 2016, Kentucky Flyer in 2019 and possible RMC Raptor in 2022/2023), with decent flat ride investments in between, as well as having a fairly big waterpark.

So my question to you today is; why do the UK’s smaller theme parks generally seem to struggle far more than similarly sized equivalents abroad? Why is Plopsaland de Panne having such success, while Drayton Manor is struggling? Why is Kentucky Kingdom prospering, while Lightwater Valley is fighting for survival? Of course, the UK does have its outliers in this regard (places like Paultons and Flamingo Land come to mind), but why does the general outlook for smaller parks in Britain seem more negative than it does for similarly sized parks abroad?

I am sure the reasons for this are very complex and not easy to pin point down to one or two things. Cultural differences, taxation, cost of living, geography etc probably all play a part.

For me though, a big part of it comes down to one company owning the top 4 theme parks in the UK. This is effectively a monopoly when you break things down by visitor numbers. I’ve used this analogy before but it’s like Asda, Tesco, Morrison’s and Sainsbury’s being owned by the same company - it just wouldn’t happen.

I guess when Merlin bought Tussauds there was far more viable competition for the 4 parks, since then we've had the collapse of Camelot and Pleasure Island and several more parks going into administration. A lot of this was prophesied by Ride Rater in 2014 https://riderater.co.uk/4134/what-is-the-future-for-independent-theme-parks/ but they couldn't have foreseen the Smiler Crash, Brexit, Splash Canyon and Covid which have all helped bring the UK theme park industry down. The non-merlin parks that are doing well are generally propped up by a company with foreign investments like Mellors or Looping or they bought the rights to a large IP like Peppa Pig.

I think there needs to be a 'Save UK parks' initiative and I kind of want to run such an initiative.

Going forward after the pandemic no one knows what the future holds for many smaller parks in the UK. Every park has its own way of drawing customers in and it’s how they keep that going for the future. Take for instance DM having 1.2m visitors in 2019 once you break it down I’d say the large majority of that would of been visitors just for Thomas Land = DM selling point. No park in the uk will be able to compete with Merlin for the foreseeable future they have the upper hand and able to control the large portion of the theme park industry. I’d say personally a lot of small parks in the UK struggle as they are only regionally known like for example here in South Wales the people I’ve spoke to about theme parks automatically know the merlin parks, Oakwood and Thomas land and that’s it.

Mr Pearse said:

Going forward after the pandemic no one knows what the future holds for many smaller parks in the UK. Every park has its own way of drawing customers in and it’s how they keep that going for the future. Take for instance DM having 1.2m visitors in 2019 once you break it down I’d say the large majority of that would of been visitors just for Thomas Land = DM selling point. No park in the uk will be able to compete with Merlin for the foreseeable future they have the upper hand and able to control the large portion of the theme park industry. I’d say personally a lot of small parks in the UK struggle as they are only regionally known like for example here in South Wales the people I’ve spoke to about theme parks automatically know the merlin parks, Oakwood and Thomas land and that’s it.

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I was surprised when I mentioned the Pepsi Max Big One to my friends and none of them had heard of it but I am southern. Most of my friends prefer to go to Disney/Universal for their holidays, mentioning Alton Towers/The Smiler will be met with "Isn't that the one that crashed", a few will go to Thorpe and went to Chessington when they were younger (they were quite horrified when I told them how much it had gone down hill since our school trip there in 2012). Mentioning any other park will be met with "never heard of it"

Don't a lot of European parks get a substantial amount of funding from local government to enable them to invest more, thus increasing tourism in the area?

There is also levels of Debt and cost of servicing that debt. Drayton Manor had a big push in the 90's to grow the business with huge investments for the parks size at the time starting with Pirates Adventure in 1990 and over that period debt levels have increased as they continued investment inc the hotel. While they made some great investments in the 90's, some of the choices in the last 20 years not so much (excluding a few like Thomas land and maelstrom).

The park back in the late 90's was attracting around 1.2m guests so roughly the same as it does now, although without the Thomas land investment they wouldn't be attracting that many. If you takeaway the debt and cost of that debt, Drayton would be successfully making a decent profit, and with careful reinvestment of that profit and some smaller more manageable borrowing could continue to see the park expand and be successful. Not sure of the terms of the looping groups purchase of Drayton, i know they paid £15m but not sure if that included taking on the Debt or as they had gone into administration that £15m paid part of the debts with the rest being written off by the banks (as is sometimes the case).

The park have had lots of plans over the years that a park of their size should have been able to afford but with the mounting cost of the debts the park hadnt been able to make those investments. There has been many well developed plans over the years for a new coaster on the buffallo site- including a Vekoma dueling launched coaster which was originally planned for 2012. They apparently looked at a Vekoma mine train back in the early 00's, plus an S&S inverted coaster after the Vekoma plans where dropped (don't think that would have been a wise investment though.

A lot of it is government will. The Conservative Party, who have been in control in the UK since 2010, simply aren't for big state intervention in business. There has also been austerity since 2010 and local authorities simply haven't had the money to fund arts/cultural/tourism projects for regional development as they did beforehand. Like it or loathe it, it's the way it is and would be naive to think otherwise. We're also now out of the EU, meaning that any regional development funds from Brussels have gone: whether or not the UK government decides to create their own remains to be seen.

There are, of course, other things at work. The other side to it is that the UK park boom was in the 1980s and 1990s. The bubble somewhat burst. Planning restrictions are often (not always) more challenging in the UK. Nimby culture is big.

The state has had a significant had in recent investments at Futuroscope, Le Pal, Vulcania, Freizeitpark Plohn and many others. The same cannot be said for attractions here.

Rule Britannia.

AstroDan said:

There are, of course, other things at work. The other side to it is that the UK park boom was in the 1980s and 1990s. The bubble somewhat burst. Planning restrictions are often (not always) more challenging in the UK. Nimby culture is big.

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Are you suggesting that the “bubble” might eventually burst in Europe?

It’s also worth noting that I wasn’t just talking about Europe. Small parks in the USA often seem to struggle less than in Britain too.

No. A lot of it is dependent on the political situation within countries. That said, in France for example, regardless of the party in power, spending on transport, tourism and culture/arts is vastly ahead of the UK. It is also ahead in Germany.

Enough said.

You're not going to get the king of state intervention to support the sector in the UK with a Conservative government: it just isn't their ideology.

American parks also have a good likelihood of being the only park in a 100 miles radius. When a state has most of their parks about 3-5 hours apart from each other there's very little competition.

There's also been a good expansion of smaller thrill coasters that small parks can build. This variation in of itself allows parks to easily get a new headline coaster for an affordable amount, rather than the £10m plus of an Intamin or B&M.

I'd say as well that there's a far more friendly rivalry nature across parks in Europe. Which pretty much means competition is encouraged rather than a focus on being the best.

I think with cost of living now people save up for different things like extensions on houses instead of moving, Holidays aboard (all inclusive), I think that’s why a lot of the parks in Devon, Somerset and Cornwall do well with holidaymakers as they can enjoy themselves more where with a wife and 2 kids 9 and 2 this year Drayton and Alton the furthest I would go In a day. With childcare costs and me on shifts to the virus goes I have to work 6 days a week on average just to cover the bills and a cover of breaks with just Sunday’s off to rest and many just want to do the same going the pub or footie.

Forgot my old chestnut.
If aviation fuel was taxed properly like road fuel, the local small parks might not have struggled as much in recent years.

I agree with most of the above. However Paultons and Flamingo Land are both parks that almost no-one outside their specific region have heard of (unless you're a theme park enthusiast) yet they're investing in large-scale projects so it's not complete doom and gloom.

Also, I feel that people are forgetting one big thing the UK/ England has that Europe doesn't (at least not recently or to the point that every household in the respective theme parks' country is aware of it) - The Smiler crash - which has damaged people's perspectives of coaster safety significantly (even Merlin parks report being emptier than they did pre-2015).

Coupled with the fact that an unacceptably large % people report having less than desirable experiences in the major theme parks in Britain (long queues; rides breaking down; dirty; rude staff based on TripAdvisor reviews of Merlin parks) then it's no wonder why people may be hesitant to a) revisit a large theme park any time soon and b) even consider trying a lesser-known or smaller theme park especially when they cost a similar amount (Paulton's is ~£35 whereas Alton Towers is £34 based on online ticket prices - I know which one I'd spend that much money on if I only have a limited budget). Theme parks are also prohibitively expensive for a certain portion of this country's populace and we don't have the luxury of international travellers popping over for a few hours to visit our theme parks to "top up" the numbers.

With all that said Britain has 4 major theme parks* (Alton; CWOA; Legoland; Thorpe), 4 mid-sized parks (BP; Drayton; Flamingo Land; Paultons) and a smattering of smaller parks distributed across the rest of the country. I believe this is typical for a Western Europe country (although arguably our parks are inferior in quality to European parks due to the reasons stated in previous posts which worsens people's experiences => lowers chance people return => less money for investment/maintenance => repeat the cycle for why UK smaller parks aren't on the same level as European parks which is literally Drayton's life story).


*Because they all reportedly get 1+ million visitors a year

AT86 said:

For me though, a big part of it comes down to one company owning the top 4 theme parks in the UK. This is effectively a monopoly when you break things down by visitor numbers. I’ve used this analogy before but it’s like Asda, Tesco, Morrison’s and Sainsbury’s being owned by the same company - it just wouldn’t happen.

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I'm ignoring the Merlin and Tussauds merger, as prior to that Tussauds were already the biggest leisure brand in the UK anyway. I think that actually Tussauds were so good at marketing Alton Towers in the 90s that it really did put other parks at a disadvantage. I can remember getting a Thunder Looper game inside a pack of Sugar Puffs, collecting tokens in Safeway supermarket to get discounted Alton Towers admission and more that really made it known Alton Towers is the "best" day out in the country. Other parks have had to work against "not being as good as Alton Towers" for the last 30 years.
As a family we made several trips to Drayton Manor in the 90s as we saw it as "cheaper", mainly due to the fact it was wristbanded rather than pay to enter back then, but Alton Towers was still seen as a bigger more expensive but more impressive day out.

A similar thing regarding Merlin can be said for M&D's in Scotland. Even when we had Loudoun, pretty much anyone here when it came to theme parks in Scotland only knew about M&D's which was rather unfortunate given how Loudoun was by far a better park though it was down purely to marketing reasons in which LC only seemed to promote themselves in the west of the country compared to M&D's who had the sheer good fortune of being a more central position and actually promoting themselves nationwide and since then seemed to be the safest park in the UK in terms of having not being able to close despite everything against them.

The real sad thing was that Loudoun were only starting to get noticed nationwide in Scotland of being a much better park in Scotland, many I knew close to me never knew the place existed and those who did go out there praised the place of being a good park. Though they never had the chance to really challenge M&D's due to their eventual closure, had they promoted themselves much soon nationwide then I feel they might've lasted longer for at least for a few years, maybe actually really kicked off with something big?

That is a great what if story, though this does bring up a similar situation that many parks do seem to not make an effort to market themselves which might contribute to the situation most are in. However those saying that Government money would help as long as we don't have a Tory government is talking out of their backside. We've had a SNP government for 14 years and in that time had never gave support to any theme park here and the only thing they seemed happy to splash money at is the thousands of golf courses that seem to open everywhere, there's a new one that's recently opened in my neck of the woods and I do wonder if they had even gave a fraction of the money to any Scottish park that who knows how they would have turned out. I'm just saying that I seriously doubt any government no matter the party would care for our parks as no one in this party like to spend a lot of money even pre-Covid unless it was on some baffling things.

In England we have parks treading on each other's toes in places which doesn't help. Towers, BPB and Mingo squeezing LWV, Towers squeezing Drayton etc. This is almost like a rebalancing of business vs population. This is why Paultons does work (closest to the SW, just about far enough away from Lego and Chessie) and why something between Glasgow and Edinburgh would work really well as it'd cast aside M&D's for being poor and have two large cities to draw on for crowds, potentially something similar could happen with a midsize park between Swansea and Cardiff. The crashes and COVID have expedited a process well under way of poor businesses being closed for poor choices.

Poisson said:

In England we have parks treading on each other's toes in places which doesn't help. Towers, BPB and Mingo squeezing LWV, Towers squeezing Drayton etc. This is almost like a rebalancing of business vs population. This is why Paultons does work (closest to the SW, just about far enough away from Lego and Chessie) and why something between Glasgow and Edinburgh would work really well as it'd cast aside M&D's for being poor and have two large cities to draw on for crowds, potentially something similar could happen with a midsize park between Swansea and Cardiff. The crashes and COVID have expedited a process well under way of poor businesses being closed for poor choices.

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That is a very good point, too many parks being so close to each other which might in itself could be one of the many reasons why our parks struggle. To be be bluntly honest, we do have a perhaps too many parks though and most of them have nowhere near the appeal of the Merlin parks and to an extent BPB.

If each park had a decent distance from each other then who knows how things might have gone, though sadly in this case we might have seen the end of Pleasureland Southport one way or the other.

I think you can have countries our size host a number of bigish parks. Belgium and Holland have a decent number of parks and they're tiny!

Plopsa, Walibi, Bellewaerde and Bobbiejobbie are all within 2 hour drive of each other!

Well I think the 'parks are too close to each other' problem is inevitable given England's high population density. However in normal circumstances I would expect most parks to keep going with reasonable investment (like Benzin said in Belgium and the Netherlands), it's just a shame that people just don't want to go to theme parks anymore and I guess we are going to see some more parks collapse.