To what extent does location matter for a park to be successful?

[Matt N]

Hi guys. When building a master planned theme park, developers often talk about looking for the ideal location. They often try and justify their chosen location by talking about transport links, population within a 2 hour driving distance or whatever metric is important. But in your opinion, does location always matter to a theme park’s success? Or does the age old adage of “if you build it, they will come” apply in this case?

Personally, I feel that location is important to some extent, but is not the be all and end all of a park’s success.

If you take the UK as an example; 3 of the country’s 4 most visited parks are within close range of London, the country’s most populated city by some margin (London has 8.9 million residents, while the closest competitor, Birmingham, has 1.1 million). Thorpe Park and Legoland Windsor are rather close to London, while Chessington is actually in London (technically speaking). And if you look at some of the other notable parks in Britain, there does appear to be some correlation between population within a close radius and visitor numbers. Drayton Manor, one of the more highly visited non-Merlin parks in the country, is not too far from Birmingham, the second biggest city in the country. Oakwood, one of the country’s lesser visited notable parks, has quite a limited population within a close radius. If you look at those case studies as well as others, there does appear to be at least a partial correlation between close population and visitor numbers.

However, I don’t think that tells the whole story in itself. Because the UK does hold one key trump card up its sleeves that disproves this correlation somewhat; Alton Towers, the UK’s most visited park by some margin (nearly 500,000 according to Merlin’s 2019 graph). Now, Alton Towers is not poorly located by any means. It is within a 2 hour drive of 3 big population centres in Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool. However, it’s not super close to (let’s say less than an hour’s drive from) any major cities, it’s quite far North (it’s certainly North Midlands, at very least), it’s in quite a rural area, and it’s over 3 hours away from London by car (at least 2.5 hours even from the most Northern boroughs, and over 3 hours from most of it). So in theory, it does not have what a theme park developer would refer to as an ideal location. However, it manages to be the most visited park in the UK by quite some margin, which I think does suggest that location isn’t necessarily the be all and end all of a park’s success, and that people are willing to travel if your product is strong enough.

But what are your thoughts? Do you think that location is everything to a park’s success? Or do you think that location plays no role at all?

 

[Danny]

I wouldn't say it's a case of "build it and they'll come". It needs sufficient press coverage, marketing, and a reputation behind it.

In the event London Resort had been built, it would have like attracted crowds due to the constant drivel from the PR machine about it being the UK Disneyland. Dreamland re-opened off a high speed link from London, and people didn't necessarily flock to the place. The same can be said for Gulliver's Valley.

These things take either time to establish trust, and a solid offering, or a colossal budget to throw at PR and marketing.

 

[Meister71]

Alton Towers kind of in the middle of nowhere with limited transport links, Energylandia although within 90 mins of 2 cities isn't well serviced by direct transport links and Efteling another with limited direct transport - they are all successful so maybe it's not the biggest consideration - I would think marketing and great rides would be a higher consideration?

Europa also doesn't have great travel links and isn't really close to any metropolitan areas

 

[QTXAdsy]

M&D's for all of its faults does have one thing in its favour is that location wise and that is that it roughly sits in the middle of Scotland's busy central belt and has transport links that makes it easier to get to with such waking distance from a nearby station, just off a motorway and 20 miles south of Glasgow.

Downside is the park itself as you all know but honestly make it decent and some positive PR then it would really come into its own. Honestly I'd give it a larger future if any ambition owner came into and decided to take it on.

 

[shakey]

Alton towers is well within driving range of a lot of large urban areas. I would say it is in an ideal location (assuming you are driving)

Stoke 30mins
Derby 40mins
Nottingham 60mins
Leicester 70mins
Birmingham 70mins
Sheffield 80mins
Manchester 80mins
Doncaster 90mins
Barnsley 90mins
Huddersfield 100mins
Preston 100mins
Liverpool 100mins
Leeds 120mins

That's a lot of people within a reasonable driving range.





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[Tim]

Location is an incredibly significant factor but from reading some of the previous comments there's a few misconception as to how.

Dfferent types of park are effected very differently. So I've broken this down into a few groups.

Local parks:
Can exist almost anywhere but their potential growth is almost exclusively tied to location. Take Pleasurewood Hills as an example. I loved visiting that park growing up and would have loved to see it add some major new rides. But it's never going to happen because where its located its only really a viable location for people living within East Anglia. Good public transport can help these parks a lot as it maximise the number of local guests that can visit.

National / International parks:
When considering parks like Alton Towers or Europa Park local population becomes less important. These 2 parks can seemingly exist in the middle of nowhere because they aren't pulling guests from the local area (less than 30 minutes away) but a national area (between 1 and 4 hours normally), with hotels supporting the longer travel. Cars are key to these parks because people want to drive to them. No one minds a 15 minute journey through some country roads if the other 3 hours of the trip are on major roads.
Europa Parks location suddenly makes a lot of sense when you realise that major population areas in Germany, France and Switzerland are also within their catchment area.

Destination parks:
This is a very exclusive group for Disney, Universal or any park tied to a major tourist attraction (like Dubai). These parks break all the rules because something in the area pulls people in. They actually benefit from really remote locations where land is cheap and their's plenty of space to expand. All they need is an airport and a major highway and they can pull people from nearly anywhere. Location still matters but people's ability to travel is more important.