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Entrance Price Increase.. AGAIN!!

Bob said:
If its too expensive for the family of four to go to the park then they shouldn't attempt to be going. I can't afford to shop at Harrods so I don't deliberately go there, buy the items then leave moaning about how expensive it is. Surely anyone with common sense knows that a day out to a theme park is expensive, it's not like you can't do any pre-planning for the trip by looking on its website or Facebook page to see entry prices. It's the quality of the day out that should be in question if people are choosing to pay £900 to visit. Sometimes Alton gives a cracking day out, sometimes it doesn't. My main critique of the park is that it should always be delivering a top quality day out.
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I agree, but when Alton is marketing its "resort" at the family market, if your average family cant afford to go then its obviously not good for business! At the same time if a family CAN afford to pay £900 but has a poor time due to something in the hotels, or queues are too long and only managed a few rides etc, then that also isnt good for the business as it will put off any repeat customers.
 
Yesterday I visited the park for the very first time in nearly 2 years and my honest reaction to the price was "Jesus christ!". Luckily I had some half price entry vouchers, but even then it's still quite pricey, especially for families. I remember the price being around £34 last time I visited, and for the price to go up by around £12 in just short of 2 years is ridiculous! I can see the reasoning for pushing half price entry vouchers, as, lets face it, it makes it look like a bargain and therefore you are more likely to visit the attraction, great, but I don't think this justifies such a huge increase in entry.

Why have they increased the price so many times in one year? Surely it can't be hard to state a price before the season starts and then stick to it!? I'm just glad I didn't pay for parking. Good old hotel car parks didn't let me down ;)
 
I dont have a Merlin Pass and I will tell you this, I have not once paid to get into the Merlin parks this year and I dont intend too ever again. I had a tesco voucher for Alton, have Sun free tickets for October, Thorpe Park complimentary tickets after a debacle of a day last year and a set of Sun vouchers and Chessington Sun Free tickets. Totals spent so far. Tickets £0. Parking £0, Food £0, Merchandise £10 (on Smiler stuff).

I like a deal, just like anyone else. However, when the offers are on ALL the time then the product is devalued. Likewise when the product has lots of offers people wait for the offers before they will go.

Take for example Pizza Express. Nice tasty food, but loads of offers if you sign up to their mailing list. Before I signed up, we would go whenever. After I signed up for emails, I realised how many offers they do and now ONLY wait for the deal and never pay full price anymore.

This is what people do with Merlin attractions and the point has been reached where the offers are saturating the market.
 
PeteA said:
I dont have a Merlin Pass and I will tell you this, I have not once paid to get into the Merlin parks this year and I dont intend too ever again. I had a tesco voucher for Alton, have Sun free tickets for October, Thorpe Park complimentary tickets after a debacle of a day last year and a set of Sun vouchers and Chessington Sun Free tickets. Totals spent so far. Tickets £0. Parking £0, Food £0, Merchandise £10 (on Smiler stuff).

I like a deal, just like anyone else. However, when the offers are on ALL the time then the product is devalued. Likewise when the product has lots of offers people wait for the offers before they will go.

Take for example Pizza Express. Nice tasty food, but loads of offers if you sign up to their mailing list. Before I signed up, we would go whenever. After I signed up for emails, I realised how many offers they do and now ONLY wait for the deal and never pay full price anymore.

This is what people do with Merlin attractions and the point has been reached where the offers are saturating the market.
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Another great example is Ben & Jerry's ice cream! Its ALWAYS on offer somewhere, usually half price. I have certainly never paid full price for a tub.

Merlin should reduce the prices, then offer the discount vouchers during quieter months (eg march, april, sept, early oct) to get customers in all the time. However the problem is now they have done these offers for so long, people expect it and go out of their way to find these offers. If you were to just remove them one year, I think they would lose a lot of customers, even if they did reduce the price massively.
 
djtruefitt said:
Merlin should reduce the prices, then offer the discount vouchers during quieter months (eg march, april, sept, early oct) to get customers in all the time. However the problem is now they have done these offers for so long, people expect it and go out of their way to find these offers. If you were to just remove them one year, I think they would lose a lot of customers, even if they did reduce the price massively.
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I could not disagree more fella, think about it...

They sack off the BOGOF stupid offers that are now on every piece of confectionery, breakfast cereal etc known to man, and some probably on Mars - and you simply say:

HALF PRICE ENTRY TO ALTON TOWERS!!

Stick it all over adverts, actually PAY for some marketing rather than giving BOGOF vouchers on everything.

They do still work, and it means they have their name out everywhere multiple times in a supermarket, so it is clever, but I would not underestimate the power of a no faff marketed bargain month or two.

Thing is though, it isn't the BOGOF vouchers that are important so much as how far their marketing reaches through placing them on so many different products.

I think though, it must have cheapened its appeal because they appear everywhere and there is nothing exclusive about them anymore. I am only surprised that food manufacturers have not cottoned onto this fact yet really.

I remember they used to be quite hard to find, and when they did, everyone bought the product in question.
 
Being visiting Towers for 24 years and I have never known my family or myself struggle to find 2-4-1 vouchers, they have always been everywhere as their value has always been in the free marketing.
 
Dave said:
Being visiting Towers for 24 years and I have never known my family or myself struggle to find 2-4-1 vouchers, they have always been everywhere as their value has always been in the free marketing.
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I don't recall them being anything like they are now. I seem to recall having to collect tokens, or do something, certainly rarer than they are today - they have saturated the market with them now.

Perhaps though other people wont notice that as much as we do.
 
TheMan said:
Dave said:
Being visiting Towers for 24 years and I have never known my family or myself struggle to find 2-4-1 vouchers, they have always been everywhere as their value has always been in the free marketing.
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I don't recall them being anything like they are now. I seem to recall having to collect tokens, or do something, certainly rarer than they are today - they have saturated the market with them now.

Perhaps though other people wont notice that as much as we do.
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No its right they were always in papers and magazines back then. My old man got his mate to buy 4 Leeds United programmes because they had vouchers for cheaper entrance. The Pont and Cas express always had vouchers inside. I think now its more noticeable because we are all older. Back when we were kids we let the parents do all that. Also seem to remember Frosties having them as part of Oblivions opening campaign.

On a strange note. The other half works for a holiday company, we are going end of October and she gets a discount booking through her work. The price for both of us going for the £65. However for two days its £56.............
 
Me and my family always found it easy to find vouchers in the 90s.

It wasn't as easy as it is now. But as long as you kept a keen eye out it has always been easy to find vouchers. Although the past 10 years vouchers have grown so much to the point that Alton Towers operates on 2-4-1's.
 
From a recent post by Kingshouse Travel's Facebook:

We'll be announcing our full coach trip line up for 2014 within the next few weeks as well as our 2014 pricing. The cost of Adult theme park tickets has increased to £48 and Child tickets has increased to £39 however we will continue to offer savings of upto 40% when booking theme park tickets with coach travel!
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Guessed this was going to happen when Thorpe put theirs up, though if Thorpe keep their FN prices Towers will be cheaper which is unusual.

Merlin do like to offer an average product at a premium price!
 
So entry next year is £24! I'm more interested to see what the online prices will be. Anyone who pays full price on the gate is quite simply a fool these days!

:)
 
I agree - there is no excuse for paying full price. I wonder what the prices for things like Pizza and Pasta will be next year given it is 9.75 currently and now Merlin have the monopoly on food outlets in the park...
 
I can see them pushing Pizza Pasta to £10.95 next year.

It's more or less had a £1 increase each year (give or take a few pennies).
 
GaryH said:
I agree - there is no excuse for paying full price. I wonder what the prices for things like Pizza and Pasta will be next year given it is 9.75 currently and now Merlin have the monopoly on food outlets in the park...
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Well Pizza Hit at Thorpe is £9.99 so they are similarly priced anyway, however Merlin Pizza & Pasta gives 20% discount.
I sometimes think that most things are priced so that they are actually 20% more without a pass and just reasonably priced with the discount. Basically non-AP holders get a bad price, everyone else pays a reasonable one.
 
The twice annual 'LOL' at admission prices.

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