GooseOnTheLoose
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Ug Bugs
I think you've got a little tangled in your own logic a bit. You've spent the better part of the last two years vehemently arguing that projects like The Curse at Alton Manor, the Nemesis Reborn retrack and the installation of Toxicator don't count as genuine "new" investments... Yet now you're, claiming that the owners do not prioritise reinvestment.
Taking tens of millions of pounds to entirely rebuild a 30 year old B&M, gut and renew a high capacity dark ride and replace a long lost flat ride on an existing concrete footprint is the literal, dictionary definition of reinvestment. You can't really complain that Merlin only ever reinvests in old assets rather than building new ones and then accuse them of failing to prioritise reinvestment.
The fundamental difference between Alton Towers and Efteling is not a matter of which boardroom cares more. The difference is that, from a purely logistical and economic standpoint, Alton Towers as a modern mega resort simply shouldn't work... And right now, it very much doesn't.
Efteling is situated in North Brabant, seamlessly integrated into the heavily subsidised and highly efficient Dutch public transport network. They have immediate, frictionless access to a massive pool of local talent who can commute to the park easily, cheaply and reliably to staff their restaurants and operate their rides.
Alton Towers is situated at the bottom of a logistical black hole in the Staffordshire Moorlands. As we have discussed ad nauseam, to work there, you generally need to own a car, pay extortionate young driver insurance premiums, and be willing to navigate 15 miles of winding B roads, all to earn the National Living Wage. Merlin controls the pay, yes, but they don't control the geographical and economic realities of the rural UK labour market. If you can't staff the park, the park fails to function, no matter how much you "care".
Efteling is owned by a foundation whose legal, sole mandate is the preservation and enhancement of the nature park and fairy tale atmosphere. Merlin is a highly leveraged corporate entity backed by private equity, whose legal mandate is to service its multi billion pound debt pile and provide a return for Blackstone and Kirkbi. The ownership models of both parks are diametrically opposed.
We've trodden this specific ground so often that the grass has worn away, so I'm not going to go several rounds with you on this one. Comparing a Dutch cultural foundation with excellent public infrastructure to a British private equity asset stranded in a forest achieves nothing other than raising blood pressures. This isn't me defending Merlin, or Towers, but merely explaining why the comparison doesn't actually really achieve anything. They're fundamentally different beasts, operating in fundamentally different realities.
