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Which UK theme park do you feel is left most at risk by the potential of Universal entering the UK?

Which UK theme park do you feel is left most at risk by the potential of Universal entering the UK?

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Five Guys and McD's probably have little overlap for most of their customer base. But even McD's are trying to make their brand/offering "more premium", and plenty of others coming into the space are nearer the premium end (WingStop, Popeye's, Dave's, Shake Shack, etc.). McD's and Spoons business model doesn't work without the footfall.

I may not be Merlin's target customer, but I'd prefer to pay more to queue less, have a better experience, and decent food. The most expensive part of a Merlin visit for me is time - what else I could be doing, or how much I could be earning. Giving up that time to stand in queues - no thanks. (We gave up Map for that exact reason)

As already said by others Merlin may have dug themselves into an Oblivion-size hole, as raising prices significantly to invest is probably a customer-losing proposition. But in any case OpEx will keep increasing (staff costs, maintenance, energy, etc.) so there's likely to be price creep.
 
Hopefully, no parks will be greatly affected. I feel Merlin will take the approach of being the 'budget' option. They have the MAP as an advantage over Universal.

People will be most concerned about Alton Towers. I think the Towers will be OK. In the worst-case scenario, they get rid of an area or two and downsize the place.

Either way, when Universal officially gets the green light and starts construction, Merlin will have a good few years to respond, either with more investment or by changing the parks in some form.
 
As much as some might dismiss it, being “budget” works as a business model. Wetherspoons are a successful example in hospitality, and Aldi and Lidl are successful examples in the supermarket industry, but on the particularly aggressive end of things, I would also raise Ryanair as a very successful example in the tourism industry.

Ryanair may not have the flashiest planes, they may not have the most comfortable seats, they may not include any luxuries in their price, they may make you fly from Stansted rather than Heathrow, they may make you fly to an airport that’s further from your destination. But people who fly with them don’t really care about that, because they were able to get those return flight tickets to, say, Malaga for an obscenely cheap price (as little as £20 per person or less in some cases).

The reason why this works, I feel, is because it opens up the industry to people who may otherwise not be able to afford it. I’ve heard lots of people say that they wouldn’t be able to go abroad at all if it wasn’t for Ryanair, and for these people, it’s Ryanair’s cheap prices that make them appealing. This is reflected in their business strategy; the CEO of Ryanair has previously gone on record as saying that he would remove the seats from Ryanair’s planes and make people stand up if it meant they could charge less for tickets (or something along those lines). They have pursued low, low prices over everything else, and it has worked very well for them.

My point is that I think this sort of space could be Merlin’s way of carving out a competitive advantage over Universal. Universal aren’t realistically going to follow them into the budget space, and if Merlin can present themselves as really cheap and come across like the “good value for money” theme park option, they could attract a great many more financially conscious families who can’t or won’t pay Universal’s prices.
 
@Matt N I don't disagree with any of what you say - apart from Ryanair planes which are the youngest fleet of (I think) any airline due to how they expanded and bought/leased new fuel-efficient jets.

What's different is that Ryanair gets 1/3 of it's revenue from ancillary services (add-ons) that have a much larger profit margin than their core service of flying. Without that, there is no Ryanair. I don't see Merlin being able to replicate that, especially if they rely on MAP for a chunk of revenue.
 
Parking is a pretty good add on...not quite compulsory, but close, then add on express, fasttrack etc, before overpriced F&B and plastic tat.
 
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