• ℹ️ Heads up...

    This is a popular topic that is fast moving Guest - before posting, please ensure that you check out the first post in the topic for a quick reminder of guidelines, and importantly a summary of the known facts and information so far. Thanks.

Merlin Entertainments: General Discussion

Virtually out of the Varney playbook of threatening the government, but does seem he has come in and but the brakes on certain things.

Not sure of the link to tourist taxes on investments at Alton Towers, or indeed any of the UK parks - maybe Legoland a little? Surely most visitors are domestic people. He needs to invest urgently, or the dynamic pricing is going to top out at about £30 for decaying parks with increasingly poor reliability.
 
"Tourist dollars seem to be moving elsewhere"

As in domestic tourists? Well, yeah, yer parks have fell to shite. And the last thing 2024 Brits want to spend money experiencing is, your company's default theme for it's attractions, decline.

Foreign tourists? Well, yeah, your flagship park is impossible to visit without a car, your other big UK park has no proper accomodation options, and most of your target will need to drive/fly away from Efteling, Europa, Disney, Asterix etc. to get here.

When was the last time Merlin created a land? Like actual worldbuilding, not Planet-Coaster-style dropping standalone theming elements into a flat/mildly landscaped spaced, fencing it, and sticking a few hessian covered speakers around the place?

Like so many things in the UK, with theme parks we're stuck between Europe and the States...and we're taking the 'worst' of both. Coasters that wouldn't cut it in the states, theming that doesn't cut it in Europe.

Maybe the tourism dollars aren't the problem, it's what you've been offering in return.

(I've had a bad day at work, I needed this)
 
TBH, that RideRater site IIRC have always had very little positive to say about anything over the years (rightly or wrongly) so no suprise for an article like this to appear.
 
And the masks begins to slip...

Seems as though this is continuing the VAT row with the government that Merlin have been pushing for years. They don't like the tax on consumption as it's essentially a tax on their trading. Whilst personally I believe that the introduction of indirect tax in the form of VAT is wrong, I don't agree with Merlin on this one because they just want to see the tax eliminated and don't really care if it gets replaced because it doesn't directly affect them. The wider state of public services won't affect them (even though it does big time).

Merlin holding back investment in UK attractions will come back to shoot them in the foot because the recent investment in the parks indicates that they've found growth potential, meanwhile Merlin's investments in Legoland Korea and New York have been the leading factors contributing to the £214million loss they've faced this year, large-scale theme parks never open financially swimmingly and how much Varney spoke about it, you'd thought that O'Neill would be aware of this...

The 'threat' for Merlin to move out of the UK isn't surprising, I think this year was the first year that the UK wasn't the leading market for Merlin's profits and I think the industry is entering a period of consolidation so they'll likely merge/buyout another entity at some point, all of which are international-based. Although I think being located in the UK does retain advantages for Merlin being able to attract top talent across both Europe, Australia and the USA quite easily.

Personally I believe we should go back to a form of more direct taxation with income and wealth taxes (maybe even bring in a form of Georgism). It's politically easy for government revenues to go for VAT because people don't see the money coming out as "bloody government taking our hard-earned money" and instead is nestled within the receipts of everything we buy. It's politically cynical.
 
Alphe86 said:
We use NPS at work and it’s completely meaningless as the threshold for a “promoter” is set by the institution.
We use 1-3 detractor. 4 passive. 5/5 promoter.

But some elsewhere use 1 detractor, 2 passive and 3-5 promoter.

It’s a truly meaningless measure
Click to expand...
No matter what the scores actually refer to, an improvement is still an improvement though.


Really depends on what customers they are getting a score from though so do agree that it still can be meaningless if they are mainly asking those that have had a positive experience with Merlin.
 
Ryan said:
Foreign tourists? Well, yeah, your flagship park is impossible to visit without a car, your other big UK park has no proper accomodation options, and most of your target will need to drive/fly away from Efteling, Europa, Disney, Asterix etc. to get here.
Click to expand...
Flagship UK park is Legoland, certainly by visitor numbers. The London Midway attractions pull in more ticket revenue than Theme Park Resorts.

Also, for the "foreign" bit, Brexit. I also can't say that geopolitically we're appearing quite friendly to visitors from abroad either.

Ryan said:
As in domestic tourists?
Click to expand...
Overall leisure spend in the UK is down. Pubs, clubs and restaurants are feeling it. Cinemas, theatres and entertainment venues are feeling it. Spend on consumer electronics and games, however, is up. We're spending more time inside and less time out, nationally and on average. At this point you're fighting ingrained new habits and there's no guarantee additional investment in a coaster, for example, is going to increase footfall long term or across the group. I appreciate that this won't tell your individual story, or the story of many on here, but it generally is the case across the board.
 
Alphe86 said:
Didn’t the planning documents have a completion date of 2025 though?
Click to expand...
jon81uk said:
Pretty certain it was a number of days/weeks of construction and people assumed they would start immediately.
Click to expand...
To my knowledge, one of the noise documents did originally infer 2025 as an opening date, by saying that the 78-week construction period would begin in Spring 2023: https://towersstreet.com/talk/threa...9-planning-approved.6401/page-121#post-448198

That’s what @Squiggs found in the Project Horizon thread during this debate, anyway.

In my view, that would certainly infer that the ride got delayed somewhere down the line.
 
Hang on, Merlin lost £214 million in a single year!? Massive points deduction incoming!

I wouldn't read too much in to those comments, he knows full well that they need to invest in UK products to generate more income going forward. It is merely at attempt to put pressure of the government regarding VAT for tourist attractions etc. And he probably doesn't like the sound of Universal being welcomed with open arms, which is unsurprising, as it will mean significant competition for Merlin.
 
It sounds like nothing more than complaining about the government to me. I wouldn't get too excited about it. Probably won't change anything.

That said, I never had any faith that they were going to sort the RTP's out anyway, and I still don't. Increases in park investment at the moment look little more than deferred spending from previous years to me, which they have more flexibility to do now they're private. If this forum was about 20 years ago, I doubt we'd be getting as excited over a new arcade and a helicopter.

A lot of the old hallmarks are still there. Legoland's being centre stage (of course, now more than ever). Obsession with IP's. Paint, shipping containers, and 2d signs. Food still getting worse in it's third season of the contract. Cheap paint jobs being passed off as renovation. Rubbish staff pay. Crap opening hours. Worlds First marketing drivel.

Said it numerous times, they're better off sticking to operating Legoland's, aquariums and Ferris wheels, and flogging off the Resort Theme Parks. They're high investment, high risk endeavours that don't fit the way they do business. Sometimes it seems that they're only useful to the group as anchor attractions for MAP sales.
 
One thing worth noting is that a lot of the stuff that is happening now in terms of major investments is still attributable to the Varney administration. Scott O’Neil has only been Merlin CEO for a year, so naturally, things won’t have changed drastically in that period of time. If O’Neil has his own mark that he wants to leave on the company, then a year will have been too little time for him to implement meaningful change.

It is disappointing if he’s said that he’s pairing back UK investment, but as others have said, I guess this could just be a threat to the government to get them to lower VAT and to express his displeasure with the notion of Universal entering the UK.
 
That quote stood out to me aswell, I can't believe he'd openly admit that in an interview and certainly doesn't come across very well.

I sadly can't see any kind of revolution coming as a direct result of his stewardship, we're very much relying on people such as Bianca to push for investments.
 
Although I don't completely agree with him, he's also not wrong in inferring that the UK isn't particularly an attractive country to do business in at the moment.

Trading relationships with other countries has declined, the planning system is awful, and it's expensive to employ people. The customer base, although growing, is getting sicker and poorer.
 
I just don’t buy that it’s park leaders who are the determining factors in investments. Yes, they may have a small impact, but the reality is that the investment strategy is set at the top. If the company is not willing to invest, then park leaders aren’t likely to be able to change that decision. The reverse is also true and has been bourne out after the takeover where it’s been obvious that the purse strings were loosened (far in advance of people like Bianca taking over).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top