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Cuts: Not What You'd Do? What Would You Do?

Cull all the sellers on Towers Street.

Cut the marketing budget.

Shut a Ride a month for essential fixing / theming fixing (not including the biggest rides as they should be done over winter) as fixing rides should be cheaper then running them.

Cut gate prices and hotel prices and remove BOGOF offers to get the punters in.

Get rid of lots of the layers of management. (TY Aly)
 
most have been said before.

I would do an overnight power uses check, and get it down to the minimum possible.
check the office areas are using energy in the most cost affective way.

remove upsellers including fast track sellers
Open at CCL 11 -1130am
Open food out lets at 11 - 1130am
close smaller food outlets and turn seating area (if they got them) into picnic points.
get staffing at correct level for time of year. (cut down on over staffing)

nip along to merlin's head office and see who in management can be cut.
 
Close down and demolish CATCF - indoor dark rides always use lots of staff, maintenance and therefore money. Replace it with something new that will need less attention and less staff - although still utilising the dark ride concept. Perhaps a miniature log flume or something, like River Caves at PBB. That wouldn't require all of the fuss around the broken simulator or the dodgy boat unloading which requires extra staff on the current ride.
 
Turn off the heat lamps in Air and Squirrel Nutty stations. Needless and wasteful. Downsize the amount of market sellers on Towers Street, cull the awful Butlins style hotel entertainment
 
Now, this works at festivals, not sure if it will at a theme park...

Increase price of cupped soft drinks by 20p, but give that 20p back if the customer takes the cup back, or 20p off a different purchase.


Now in a festival situation you get normal people cleaning up collecting cups because one the get enough, you get a free beer...

I'm guessing this will not work in the same way in a theme park, but in theory you could reduce cleaning costs...

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EuroSatch said:
Turn off the heat lamps in Air and Squirrel Nutty stations. Needless and wasteful. Downsize the amount of market sellers on Towers Street, cull the awful Butlins style hotel entertainment
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I could be wrong here but I've always assumed the ones in Air are designed to keep the wheels warm, similar to the ones found under the station on Colossus.
 
Operate Nemesis on a single train on all days during March-June and September-November (barring Fireworks).
Delay the opening of Hex, Blade, Ripsaw, Duel, Charlie and Enterprise and Submission until 11am.
All rides to have a minimum pre-dispatch waiting time of five minutes if vacant seats remain.
Have Spinball Noodles open 11:30am-1:30pm daily.
Play Burger King off against McDonalds/Subway for competition over the contract for that building.
Increase individual ride photos to £10 and flood the park with 50% off vouchers.
Have only Sonic Spinball, Sharkbait Reef, Oblivion and Nemesis open during ERT.
Reduce the number of actors outside Nemesis Sub-Terra.
Enforce a 10% pay cut on all staff working above minimum wage, 20% for managers and accountants etc.
Not a cut, but increased utilisation of Facebook and Twitter promotions to drum up interest.
 
Tom said:
Operate Nemesis on a single train on all days during March-June and September-November (barring Fireworks).
Delay the opening of Hex, Blade, Ripsaw, Duel, Charlie and Enterprise and Submission until 11am.
All rides to have a minimum pre-dispatch waiting time of five minutes if vacant seats remain.
Have Spinball Noodles open 11:30am-1:30pm daily.
Play Burger King off against McDonalds/Subway for competition over the contract for that building.
Increase individual ride photos to £10 and flood the park with 50% off vouchers.
Have only Sonic Spinball, Sharkbait Reef, Oblivion and Nemesis open during ERT.
Reduce the number of actors outside Nemesis Sub-Terra.
Enforce a 10% pay cut on all staff working above minimum wage, 20% for managers and accountants etc.
Not a cut, but increased utilisation of Facebook and Twitter promotions to drum up interest.
Click to expand...

I agree with the Nemesis idea as it only ever clocks queues of 20 minutes max. But I don't think McDonalds are ever going to return to the park in recent years forward as many still have the bitter taste of the health inspector in their mouth. So Subway please! And that ERT sounds good with 2 family and 2 thrill.
 
The difference in cost between running 1 and 2 trains is pretty minimal, but the difference to guest satisfaction is huge. Alton Towers should be praised for their willingness to run rides on high capacity even on relatively quiet days, as it really sets them apart from the competition.

Obviously if trains are being sent half empty then by all means take one off, but if the queue is ever more than 10-15 minutes on low capacity I wouldn't be impressed.
 
Stelios said:
Tom said:
Operate Nemesis on a single train on all days during March-June and September-November (barring Fireworks).
Delay the opening of Hex, Blade, Ripsaw, Duel, Charlie and Enterprise and Submission until 11am.
All rides to have a minimum pre-dispatch waiting time of five minutes if vacant seats remain.
Have Spinball Noodles open 11:30am-1:30pm daily.
Play Burger King off against McDonalds/Subway for competition over the contract for that building.
Increase individual ride photos to £10 and flood the park with 50% off vouchers.
Have only Sonic Spinball, Sharkbait Reef, Oblivion and Nemesis open during ERT.
Reduce the number of actors outside Nemesis Sub-Terra.
Enforce a 10% pay cut on all staff working above minimum wage, 20% for managers and accountants etc.
Not a cut, but increased utilisation of Facebook and Twitter promotions to drum up interest.
Click to expand...

I agree with the Nemesis idea as it only ever clocks queues of 20 minutes max. But I don't think McDonalds are ever going to return to the park in recent years forward as many still have the bitter taste of the health inspector in their mouth. So Subway please! And that ERT sounds good with 2 family and 2 thrill.
Click to expand...

I'm not being funny but that ERT seems awful! Two of the attractions you don't often have to queue for anyway! In my family, my much younger brother would only be able to visit Sharkbait Reef as he is scared of everything else! Why can't they just open specific areas, for example Dark Forest & CCL? I spend most of ERT walking between rides!
 
Olii said:
First thing I would do is close the monorail on quiet days, the walk from the car park to the theme park isn't really that far and when it is quiet the car parks used by the small(er) amount of cars would be those closest to the entrance anyway. This would save on staffing and electrical costs of the monorail.
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The walk from the car park to the theme park isn't really that far, to whom? Remember there are a lot of young kids and families visiting - a 10-15min walk at the end of a long day could be an absolute nightmare to them, and definitely put a bad taste in the mouth. I think the park has always recognised how imperative the Monorail is.


As for over-staffing comments.. I haven't seen staff on entrances all season - indeed, even when working there, I don't think I've seen a member specifically rota'd for the 'entrance' position on Oblivion since 2009! Each ride has a minimum amount of staff it needs on the ride before it can run, and I've seen Oblivion very close to that on my visits - for example, only one bayloader (which was a reality far too often through last season as well - and undoubtedly makes a difference to guest experience - and runs staff absolutely ragged!).

To be honest, if they have to make substantial operational cuts, then the closure of lesser-used food outlets was the most agreeable one to me. :)
 
The walk from car parks to entrance is hideous. Poor quality path ways , old signs...

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Totally agree, its the one thing that Alton dont have, the ability to install infrastructure and have an eye for detail. The path from the car parks to the hotels should be a covered and well lit walkway that would not only draw the public to the hotels perhaps getting something to eat or drink after a long day and advertise the rest of the resort that im still convinced 50% of the people dont know about. It would take pressure off the monorail. It looks better. It could be used in the winter by hotel guests. It keeps them away from traffic. It could have speakers in and play similar music/adverts like the monorail.

But alas its not a vital expenditure and will never happen, instead people spend the end of their day traipsing over gravel and over roads
 
A hell of a lot of the suggestions in these threads would make utterly awful business decisions.

Monorail is one of the key things about the parks uniqueness, get it right and it can make perfect first and last impressions - vital if you want people to return again!
 
Replace the opening gates with a cinema style electronic ticket collection system. At the moment the park promotes you to purchase tickets online by offering a slight discount. However, this doesn't take into account the fact a vast majority of people will be using BOGOF vouchers. Perhaps vouchers need to have a code which can be entered online to redeem your 2-4-1 voucher(s).
 
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