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Potential New Universal UK Park

Squiggs said:
I've not watched the video, but based on the thumbnail, could they be doing archaeological surveys?

This would be the right sort of time for that kind of work.
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They are. The video also mentioned that the Northern parcel has already had the same survey done way back in 2020. I personally don't see them covering the whole Core Zone with trenches as being particularly extraordinary, once they started there was no way they would only cover half the area.
 
Excalibur said:
A news letter has been sent out to Lidlington Parsish Council with these things highlighted.

- Hotel onsite is expected to have 500 rooms
- City Walk will have 4 original restaurants (Toothsome perhaps?)
- A final decision wether to proceed is expected by June 2024

I literally cannot hold my excitement!
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June is not long to wait, hope it happens, never been to America as too expensive so this would be a dream for a park like this to be in our country.

I wonder if DLP would be more popular if it was in the UK?
 
I can’t wait for a kick up Merlin’s arse, all those claims as being 2nd to Disney…with universal potentially coming, let’s see it! Do you think if universal continues on this journey, will it push Merlin to invest more in their parks?
 
They'll definitely have to invest, and will likely use the threat of universal coming to try and help push through any planning applications the way Thorpe mentioned the London resort when submitting plans for Hyperia.

It's not just the parks themselves Merlin will be worried about it'll be trying to ensure half their full time work force don't all jump ship to Universal the second they start advertising senior roles for the project and park.
 
John_P said:
They'll definitely have to invest, and will likely use the threat of universal coming to try and help push through any planning applications the way Thorpe mentioned the London resort when submitting plans for Hyperia.

It's not just the parks themselves Merlin will be worried about it'll be trying to ensure half their full time work force don't all jump ship to Universal the second they start advertising senior roles for the project and park.
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I know where my annual pass money will be going.
 
I really hope the in park food is to the standards as the Orlando parks! This country's theme parks food offering is abysmal. Specially since Aramark came on the scen
And I hope we get snacks like massive Churros , Turkey legs and corn dogs etc, I know there crap food but they just remind me of Universal / Disney
 
JT01 said:
I really hope the in park food is to the standards as the Orlando parks! This country's theme parks food offering is abysmal. Specially since Aramark came on the scen
And I hope we get snacks like massive Churros , Turkey legs and corn dogs etc, I know there crap food but they just remind me of Universal / Disney
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I think there’s a good chance that Universal will look to blow other UK parks out the water with the wraparound provisions - food, merch, cleanliness, entertainment, etc.

Part of the ambition of this park will be turning UK and some Euro visitors onto the US Florida parks. So, a real mind-blowing experience could influence future FL visitors to switch from a Disney Hotel to a Universal Hotel, and shift their planned days on park in favour of US.

US know Florida will receive a solid number of UK visitors every year, so their marketing focus has to be pull them away from Disney and into their parks.

Making other UK parks (and DLP) look like regional parks in all regards is an ideal marketing step for first touch point visitors.

Basically, a long-winded way of saying - I think you might well get your turkey leg.
 
BSwiss said:
I think there’s a good chance that Universal will look to blow other UK parks out the water with the wraparound provisions - food, merch, cleanliness, entertainment, etc.

Part of the ambition of this park will be turning UK and some Euro visitors onto the US Florida parks. So, a real mind-blowing experience could influence future FL visitors to switch from a Disney Hotel to a Universal Hotel, and shift their planned days on park in favour of US.

US know Florida will receive a solid number of UK visitors every year, so their marketing focus has to be pull them away from Disney and into their parks.

Making other UK parks (and DLP) look like regional parks in all regards is an ideal marketing step for first touch point visitors.

Basically, a long-winded way of saying - I think you might well get your turkey leg.
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It's not even about them looking to boost attendance for their Florida Parks. There's severe amount of complacency coming from Merlin, especially in regards to F&B and general theming, improvements etc etc. Universal will see the giant void in the Uk Theme Park market and will be looking to fill it with a World Class park and exploit the lack of viable competition.

They will make sure to nail every element of the park purely because doing so will see people come in droves and then yes that'll boost Universal Florida attendance when those Brits go abroad. But the big money is exploiting the lack of a World Class Park over here - they're looking at 8.5mill a year from the off, that's a way bigger deal than maybe boosting the Florida parks by half a million people.

I think my main issue is your assertion of the Park acting as a marketing focus for the Florida Parks. That's a byproduct of what they are doing but not their main intention - they're not building here to make the Florida Parks more popular, they're doing so because this is a untapped market that they wanna roll into. They will give it the full Universal treatment from top to bottom because to do otherwise would be idiotic. The UK Market is primed for them and DLP is vulnerable, especially after they opened that horrible Studio gate.
 
There is a significant market for people in the UK who have money to spend but have been priced out of Florida. Families will spend far more for the Universal experience if it's on Thier doorstep. I'm already thinking of a two night stay at Thier hotel because I want that whole Universal experience.
 
Relife said:
There is a significant market for people in the UK who have money to spend but have been priced out of Florida. Families will spend far more for the Universal experience if it's on Thier doorstep. I'm already thinking of a two night stay at Thier hotel because I want that whole Universal experience.
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I'm one of those people. I could never afford a Florida trip but a 2 day stay in Bedford? Yea I can do that 2-3 times a year. Probably good I no longer live in North Herts, I may have got an annual pass and tried to go every weekend :p.
 
xtpower said:
I'm one of those people. I could never afford a Florida trip but a 2 day stay in Bedford? Yea I can do that 2-3 times a year. Probably good I no longer live in North Herts, I may have got an annual pass and tried to go every weekend :p.
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+1. I'm a single parent so Florida is almost totally unreachable without some sort of bank loan. DLP is easy to do though and Universal only a couple of hours down the M1 would have me really tempted by an annual pass as by the time it opens my kids will be too old for all the non-AT Merlin stuff that comes with the annual passes.
 
Florida is unreachable financially for even the middle classes these days. Used to be a once in a lifetime thing that even the working classes could afford if they stretched. But housing and rents are so expensive now, the Kirsty Alsopp strategy to just stop eating Avocado's and cancelling Netflix means many will be hard pushed to spend a couple of days at DLP. That's where the market position of Universal lies, not directly thrashing Merlin head on. An experience you'd have to travel abroad for at home.

Merlin would have to review their strategy, but I almost guarantee you it won't involve borrowing £ hundreds of millions to throw at their existing parks. That would be crazy. It's more likely to have the opposite effect, maybe even slowing large scale investments down but make them more targeted. There will be no race to spend money trying to compete for identical custom as that would be stupid. If you had your pension tied up in Merlin, would you want them to do this?
 
Matt.GC said:
Florida is unreachable financially for even the middle classes these days. Used to be a once in a lifetime thing that even the working classes could afford if they stretched. But housing and rents are so expensive now, the Kirsty Alsopp strategy to just stop eating Avocado's and cancelling Netflix means many will be hard pushed to spend a couple of days at DLP. That's where the market position of Universal lies, not directly thrashing Merlin head on. An experience you'd have to travel abroad for at home.

Merlin would have to review their strategy, but I almost guarantee you it won't involve borrowing £ hundreds of millions to throw at their existing parks. That would be crazy. It's more likely to have the opposite effect, maybe even slowing large scale investments down but make them more targeted. There will be no race to spend money trying to compete for identical custom as that would be stupid. If you had your pension tied up in Merlin, would you want them to do this?
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Agreed, think you can get sucked down the YouTube/social media rabbit hole and think it’s easy to just pop across to Orlando for a week or two. If I scrimped and saved for a year I might be able to afford it but it would affect the quality of my life, in a way that sacrificing a few hundred quid to go down to Bedford would not. Bring it on (and I’ll still go to Towers too!).
 
xtpower said:
It's not even about them looking to boost attendance for their Florida Parks. There's severe amount of complacency coming from Merlin, especially in regards to F&B and general theming, improvements etc etc. Universal will see the giant void in the Uk Theme Park market and will be looking to fill it with a World Class park and exploit the lack of viable competition.

They will make sure to nail every element of the park purely because doing so will see people come in droves and then yes that'll boost Universal Florida attendance when those Brits go abroad. But the big money is exploiting the lack of a World Class Park over here - they're looking at 8.5mill a year from the off, that's a way bigger deal than maybe boosting the Florida parks by half a million people.

I think my main issue is your assertion of the Park acting as a marketing focus for the Florida Parks. That's a byproduct of what they are doing but not their main intention - they're not building here to make the Florida Parks more popular, they're doing so because this is a untapped market that they wanna roll into. They will give it the full Universal treatment from top to bottom because to do otherwise would be idiotic. The UK Market is primed for them and DLP is vulnerable, especially after they opened that horrible Studio gate.
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I think you’ve maybe mistaken my point here. I never claimed the parks will be acting as marketing for Florida parks, but that will be part of their ambition. It’d be naive to think there won’t be strategies dedicated to enhancing UK advocacy for Universal within this park.

The park is going to have a captive audience. It’s almost a marketing open goal - there’s no way the park will have anything other than brilliant visitor numbers for the foreseeable (unless they price it ridiculously or do something stupid).

So, my point is, there is huge value in increasing brand reputation amongst UK guests. And this will be partly done in the wraparound.

US has to be amazing in FL to compete with Disney. And their reputation trickles through from every site and customer touch point.

And this leads us to turkey legs.
 
I agree with Matt.G.C. There's a chance that as a response to losing custom, Merlin will just cut back on operating costs (staff etc) and other expenditure (rides etc) in order to just maintain profit margin. It's what most companies do these days. It's the easy way. Look at what supermarkets have done since Lidl and Aldi started taking market share. Oh dear, look at this, better fire half our work force and just hope the business carries on limping along and producing profits...
 
BarryZola said:
I agree with Matt.G.C. There's a chance that as a response to losing custom, Merlin will just cut back on operating costs (staff etc) and other expenditure (rides etc) in order to just maintain profit margin. It's what most companies do these days. It's the easy way. Look at what supermarkets have done since Lidl and Aldi started taking market share. Oh dear, look at this, better fire half our work force and just hope the business carries on limping along and producing profits...
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I personally don't think Merlin will bat an eyelid. They have IP coming out of their ears and an international presence so another competitor won't worry them.

It would be interesting to see how more detached places like Center Parcs react. Their Woburn Forest site is literally next door, could there be a loose tie-in like the Villages Nature has with Disneyland Paris?
 
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