Do Towers take any notice of fan forums though? I wouldn't! I'm sure someone at the park social media team would naturally have a butchers on some of these threads once in a while, I mean who wouldn't have some sort of interest in online fan discussion about your employer? But I can't see anyone at Towers giving a damn what any of us think. Many of us will still hand over the cash regardless of what ever they do.
I think they need to consider what kind of visitor they want to win over to suit their business strategy, whether it's families, overnight stays, those most likely to spend the most cash or whatever and target them for their opinions.
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Obviously they're not going to take every post as gospel, but forums, social media pages and Youtube channels are essential to a business in this day and age, and I can say with absolute certainty they're read by the resort. Sure forums are used less and less as time goes on, but there's very few places where you'll get such detail from a guest, when many are hard pushed to fill in simple feedback surveys.
People don't just visit official channels for information before their visit, they'll check out those unofficial sources of information and especially vlogs like TPWW. For all the reporting we do whilst on park as TowersStreet, the comments we have on posts are from both enthusiasts and occasional visitors too. They're publicly visible and appear on their friend's feeds who are all potential visitors. They're an essential tool to gauge reaction to announcements or get realtime feedback on how things are going on park.
Alton have and do consider who they want to win over to suit their business strategy - and families, especially those who extend a stay overnight
always will be the main driving factor. And in all honesty, they generally do that quite well. It's why we've had CBeebie's Land, CBeebies Hotel, Sealife and Dungeons. However, for all the families that visit, they still need to cater for other markets - we've seen what happens when there's a move to corner a park into one market *
cough* Thorpe.
For all those weekdays they open and those quieter days in September, for the likes of Scarefest where mazes bring in big money but aren't necessarily suitable for a lot of families - the thrill/younger market is essential. We're seeing heavily discounted student tickets through the week to encourage attendance and further revenue on off peak days, and in the past we've seen Adrenaline Week to encourage that too. We've seen a move away from dedicated thrill rides (higher, faster records etc) toward 1.2m rides like Thirteen which suit both family and thrill markets. Wickerman has been an especially excellent example of that, probably one of the best we've seen for a long time in the UK.
I would probably also add that whilst we don't see anything like the Customer Council of old, there's likely still plenty of targeted research that still goes on in the background that we don't see, just not necessarily as publicly as that was.
