Corporations sometimes do weird things, only to make their financial sheets look fine, or at least, to conceal the worst. Even if it looks suicidal as a business decision, for an outsider. I saw it in a completely different context: responding to some crisis, the management wanted to avoid financial loss at any cost, firing urgently required staff and cutting every corner, so that fullfilling their next contracts was almost certainly doomed, and new products would be cancelled, delayed or released with serious flaws. For the management, everything was about avoiding a negative balance sheet, whatever would happen later was not a problem of today. Because these numbers are what a manager is responsible for, and what he can be rewarded or punished for.
Merlin stocks made a deep fall last October, and it seems like they want to fix their numbers at any possible future cost. They have their business reports online, under Investor Relations. So it's all about spending less and squeezing more money out, no matter if people come to the conclusion to never come back again. Or, in the worst case, they have huge numbers of new visitors, or those returning after a long time, to see the nice new roller coaster, who then experience rides open only for a short time, long downtimes, long queues (in parts deliberately, goodbye single rider queue for best fill-up) and tricks to push them into expensive fast track purchases, if they want more than just waiting and frustration. Many may decide to never come again. Unfortunately, this also worked in some cases, bringing increased profits, at least for some time.
Corporations and large stock companies are often ONLY about (quick) money, allowing really no other interest or goal. The shareholders do nothing, they just park their money and hope somebody makes more out of it. The managers may attempt to make park visits really tedious for those who paid their initial 30 to 50something pounds, allowing them no more than 3 rides per day, due to unnecessary long queues, and apply this even to parking. Once they've paid, visitors might refuse to accept that they wasted their money and throw even more good money after the bad (Escalation of Commitment). Ultimately, some may make people pay for paying, with an extra fee that can be avoided only through a very special credit card. Ryanair style. But none of these theme parks is nearly as cheap as Ryanair; in fact, most never lowered their entry fee, when they took away attraction usages from the average visitor, giving them to fast trackers. So the question is really, how much are visitors willing to take.
