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Will Alton Towers' visitor numbers ever return to their pre-Smiler levels?

AGL said:
Why would people go to towers from the south? For thrills, they have Thorpe. For family, they have Chessington, LLW and Paulton’s.

I think towers have lost their way and therefore a decent slice of the market.
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For me, Pleasure Woodhills or Great Yarmouth Pleasure Beach are my closest park, but not worth the visit.

Thorpe, Chessie and LLW are the closer Merlin Parks in distance compared to Alton, but the M25 traffic means that Alton is actually the quickest option for driving for me, plus I prefer the rides at Alton.
 
Matt.GC said:
Don't you think that's the problem though? Baragain basement prices for a bargain basement experience? You can buy DVDs from the bargain bin in Asda for £2 but its only a good deal if the movie is OK.

Towers is an incredible and unique park. Other theme parks have to spend millions on theming to get what Towers have naturally. I love the place dearly, which is why it breaks my heart to see what it has become.

People are coming for a cheap day out, nostalgia or because they haven't been in a while. If they charged £150 for a season pass and £45 entry with deals and coupons but offered a Europa Park style experience (which they could do with some investment), then there's no reason why they couldn't go over 3 million plus per year. But they don't. The park has one of the best settings in the world for any theme park. So seeing it run as a fun fair is cringe worthy.

It's a race to the bottom. Relying on the parks good name and image of yesteryear mixed with heavy discounting to drive people in. It's a recipe for short term gain with long term terminal decline.
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Hold your horses! I am of meagre budget, and The season pass deal is fantastice value. I don't want to to up just because it can.

I also think the park has improved this year, it will continue to do so as the visitor numbers rise again, partially because of the season pass.

I don't think raising prices would be popular at all, we are living in austere times
 
Im really suprised that those numbers haven't already risen to pre-smiler levels (unless the numbers are false of course). Especially after last year due to wicker man and the really good channel 4 documentary made about it. Surely that brought in more than 200000 extra people?

The park seems to be improving a little each year, but I think if they added some new flat rides and water rides it would make it more inviting to familys of all ages and probably get more people coming.

If not then SW9 is surely gonna drum up a crowd like all of the SW projects do. I reckon people will have trust in the park again by the time that comes.
 
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WickerMan99 said:
I reckon people will have trust in the park again by the time that comes.
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Trust isn't the only contributing factor to driving guests through the gate. Good value for money is, which is why season passes are having to be offered for the same price as a gate ticket. The fact of the matter is that Alton Towers is not good value for money. The operating hours are amongst the worst parks in the world. The quality of food and beverage continues to dive bomb year upon year. Customer service is far from desirable.

Obviously the park have had to rebuild a huge component of trust following the accident; to the extent an operations director was used more as a marketing gimmick than anything else. But you cannot drive guests into a theme park on trust alone; there has to be a sense that they want you to have an enjoyable visit and get the best value for money. That is seriously lacking at the moment.
 
Danny said:
Trust isn't the only contributing factor to driving guests through the gate. Good value for money is, which is why season passes are having to be offered for the same price as a gate ticket. The fact of the matter is that Alton Towers is not good value for money. The operating hours are amongst the worst parks in the world. The quality of food and beverage continues to dive bomb year upon year. Customer service is far from desirable.

Obviously the park have had to rebuild a huge component of trust following the accident; to the extent an operations director was used more as a marketing gimmick than anything else. But you cannot drive guests into a theme park on trust alone; there has to be a sense that they want you to have an enjoyable visit and get the best value for money. That is seriously lacking at the moment.
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A colleague I used to sit next to - not an enthusiast, but enjoys a rollercoaster - went to Alton Towers once last year on Sun free tickets. He visited in the week, so got a 10-4 operating hours day with the infamous staggered openings thrown in. His words were "I won't be back there in a hurry".

So Towers have succeeded in annoying a guest who had free entry (only had to pay for parking), who only had a 33mile journey each way and visited on a quiet day to the extent where they say they are not going back anytime soon.

There is the saying that a dissatisfied person will tell 10 people about their bad experience, whereas a satisfied person may tell 2 or 3 people. Well this colleague told the entire support office about his "quality" day out courtesy of Merlin / Towers, so there's about 60 people within circa 30miles of the park who are probably not inclined to head there soon.
 
Ethan said:
I disagree. Tbf Alton towers is home to world class roller coasters that are unique in their own way. Smiler, wicker man, galactica, nemesis, oblivion. These rides make it worth the visit, well for me anyway.
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Ride hardware alone does not dictate whether or not a park is good value for money. You could fill a park with off-the-shelf layout rides but if they are operated efficiently, combined with great food and beverage offerings and park-wide entertainment; the value for money would be far better than a park which is overseen by a company with no concept of offering a genuine guest experience.
 
Danny said:
Trust isn't the only contributing factor to driving guests through the gate. Good value for money is, which is why season passes are having to be offered for the same price as a gate ticket. The fact of the matter is that Alton Towers is not good value for money. The operating hours are amongst the worst parks in the world. The quality of food and beverage continues to dive bomb year upon year. Customer service is far from desirable.

Obviously the park have had to rebuild a huge component of trust following the accident; to the extent an operations director was used more as a marketing gimmick than anything else. But you cannot drive guests into a theme park on trust alone; there has to be a sense that they want you to have an enjoyable visit and get the best value for money. That is seriously lacking at the moment.
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I think its pretty good value for money. Its the largest theme park in the country and has some of the best themed and quality rides. Especially if you can get yourself a couple of free tickets in the sun which means its even cheaper to get in. It makes it a lot more value in that case.

I haven't had a problem with customer service myself. The ride operators all seemed quite friendly when I was there (especially those working around Wicker Man). I think Alton is miles above Thorpe (who's staff seemed like they didn't want to be there).

I personally agree with opening times needing to be a little longer. But tbf I usually manage to do all the rides I want to before closure. If they are extending opening times I'd like to see more flat rides, family rides or water rides added to the park. More things to do = a longer time you want to stay at the park = better value for money.
 
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WickerMan99 said:
I think its pretty good value for money. Its the largest theme park in the country and has some of the best themed and quality rides. Especially if you can get yourself a couple of free tickets in the sun which means its even cheaper to get in. It makes it a lot more value in that case.

I haven't had a problem with customer service myself. The ride operators all seemed quite friendly when I was there (especially those working around Wicker Man). I think Alton is miles above Thorpe (who's staff seemed like they didn't want to be there).

I personally agree with opening times needing to be a little longer. But tbf I usually manage to do all the rides I want to before closure. If they are extending opening times I'd like to see more flat rides, family rides or water rides added to the park. More things to do = a longer time you want to stay at the park = better value for money.
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Just to say Europa Park is 50 euros for a day ticket and has better hours and is world class. I got my busch seaworld tickets for £100 for a 14 day pass with unlimited free parking.
Both Europa and seaworld offer world class experience, great service, brilliant F&B and have great rides and themeing which are IMHO better than towers.

I just can't say based on those above figures that alton offers a good value experience....
 
I think it’s down to a new generation 25 years ago my parents and my friends parents took there kids to theme parks and we spoke about how good Nemesis was and parks like Drayton Manor and then American Adventure.
Fast forward to now and now of my school m8’s and college friends have taken there kids to Alton Towers even at work there’s guys in there 30s not been since they were a kid and many 18 to 24 year olds that have never been so they more than likely won’t take your kids to theme parks.
 
They could do with some events, something marketable that will attract different groups of people. I don't think it's enough just to expect people to come without putting in some effort to encourage them.
 
Alsty said:
They could do with some events, something marketable that will attract different groups of people. I don't think it's enough just to expect people to come without putting in some effort to encourage them.
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The parks busy enough anyway. 30-60 min queues for most rides
 
Was surprised this weekend to see that staggered openings are still in effect. RMT didn't open until 11 , neither did rapids and a few others, yet the place was absolutely packed first thing.
 
GaryH said:
Was surprised this weekend to see that staggered openings are still in effect. RMT didn't open until 11 , neither did rapids and a few others, yet the place was absolutely packed first thing.
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Most people don't go to those rides til later on so that makes sense. Tbh even when some of the coasters didn't open til 11 last year it made sense, forbidden valley is dead until about 11:30
 
They need to send someone down to Dreamland to take a look at their events. There's no doubt it's had a rocky life since re-launching in 2015, but they've hit the nail on the head when they performed the conversion to an event based amusement park.
 
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