Originally Posted By davewasbaloo Nope, but Europa Park is. In fact, I know many that prefer it to DLP. And I am very much looking forward to their new hotel. But this Paramount resort looks far more interesting that DLP. While Disney seemed to turn their back on anyone over 13, this one seems to offer a little testostrone into the mix. For that I will be grateful (if it opens)
Originally Posted By u k fan I take your point about Europa Park, however we're still talking about a hotel and not a new theme park. None of the sites you mentioned are opening a new park. I agree that in many ways it looks like a fun park and I'd love to visit it. Paramount's biggest franchises are skewed older and male so it makes sense that the park appeals to adult males. Disney's big franchises skew younger and generally more female so that's what they do. What lets Paramount down compared to Disney is having nothing that's not franchise based. Nothing I've seen mentions a HM or BTM or JC that sums up the land without being based on an existing property. That's what makes a great theme park IMHO!!!
Originally Posted By leemac <<If the demand is not there, then why do we see Legoland Windsor and Europa Park building new hotels, with Drayton Manor's having opened this year. And the Alton Towers and Chessignton hotels are often fully booked during the school holidays?>> Comparing apples and oranges. The UK theme park market is nothing like Continental Europe. The Spanish are not theme park fans - in terms of Western Europe they are far and away at the bottom of that table.
Originally Posted By leemac <<And the Alton Towers and Chessignton hotels are often fully booked during the school holidays?>> Chessington's hotel has 150 rooms - it isn't difficult to fill that number of rooms. Alton Towers is in the middle of nowhere - captive market and they should have been in the hotel market before it became part of Merlin.
Originally Posted By dagobert >>>The UK theme park market is nothing like Continental Europe. The Spanish are not theme park fans - in terms of Western Europe they are far and away at the bottom of that table.<<< Really? I always thought they are crazy about themeparks, but my point of view is based on visits to DLRP, where many guests are Spanish. I also thought that's the reason why ED SCA focuses so much on the Spanish instead of the German market to advertise DLRP.
Originally Posted By dagobert Although the Paramount Park offers a lot attractions that mainly appeal to adults, I wouldn't go there just for the park. I think it is intended to be a local park and that's why I also think, that due to the economic crisis the operating company is taking a high risk. Except for DLRP nearly all European parks are kind of local parks.
Originally Posted By leemac <<Really? I always thought they are crazy about themeparks, but my point of view is based on visits to DLRP, where many guests are Spanish. >> Spain is 9% of attendance. Granted that is the third highest but it isn't a huge number in terms of penetration - it is much higher in the Benelux countries, France and UK. Germans have always shunned DLRP - I think it is less than 2% of guests.
Originally Posted By leemac I should have added that the Spanish theme park market is deemed to be under-developed although I don't subscribe to that view. PortAventura has had declining attendance numbers (although it is now owned by a bank that has no theme park experience) and Parque Warner Madrid has had to be restructured a number of times (the city owns the majority of it now). The great irony is that Parque Reunidos is one of the largest theme park operators in the world (think Kennywood) but it has two struggling parks in its home territory.
Originally Posted By dagobert >>>Germans have always shunned DLRP - I think it is less than 2% of guests.<<< That's true, but we don't have any adverising over here. There are people who think that DLRP was closed in the 90ies. I know that there are many themeparks in Germany and Germans love to visit the parks, but the lack of advertising doesn't help to bring them to DLRP. Many European countries get huge discounts for DLRP, while we get none. So no one needs to wonder why Germans don't come and go to their own great parks.
Originally Posted By leemac ^^ We've always been told that it is because Germans prefer two types of breaks: 1) City breaks; and 2) Beach holidays. DLRP fits into neither category. Germans support their own theme park community but won't travel west to DLRP. I'm not sure advertising would change that. A global marketing executive at WDP&R told me that they had research that suggested that anti-American sentiment plays a role. I'm not sure it is necessarily anti-American but it does seem that the American themes don't resonate with German audiences in the same way as the British.
Originally Posted By dagobert That really surprises me. I've never had the impression that we (I'm Austrian, but Disney considers Germany and Austria as a single market) or the Germans are anti-American. Maybe that was twenty years ago. Disney, especially the movies and comics, is very popular over here. When did Disney do that research? Last year a big German tourism company signed a deal with DCL and we can book Disney cruises. I'm not sure if that deal would have been made, when there was no demand. When I talk to people about Disneyland, they always consider it as a small park for children. Maybe I'm wrong, but I still think advertising could change that image.
Originally Posted By u k fan I agree with dagobert that pretty much all European parks are local parks. How many French visitors come over to visit Alton Towers? As theme park fans we may seek them out, but I don't think most do. Some of us may visit Paramount Park specially as park fans and a few Brits may visit if in the area, but most won't even know it exists!!!
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt "Germans have always shunned DLRP - I think it is less than 2% of guests." Which partially explains why Europa Park has decent numbers. They are going there instead.
Originally Posted By leemac ^^ That and the fact it is much cheaper - I think the high season ticket price is something like €35 compared to €57 for DLRP. That said over 4m attendees for a seasonal park is exceptional. Europa also benefits from being privately held and used as a playground for its owners - MACK Rides.
Originally Posted By dagobert Did Disney calculate with Germany when creating DLRP? Didn't Disney do a research before building it? I mean the company built too many hotels and that implies that Disney expected more Germans.
Originally Posted By davewasbaloo >>> I'm not sure it is necessarily anti-American but it does seem that the American themes don't resonate with German audiences in the same way as the British.<<< That is interesting given the love of Country Music in Germany, and the wild west dinner show in Europa Park regularly sells out. Also, we noticed at Phantasialand a huge number of cowboy hats selling too.
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt From my experience Germans seem to love American culture. I get the impression that the two primary reasons they shy away from DLP is that they are not particularly enamored with Disney and they don't care much for the French.
Originally Posted By davewasbaloo I know comparatively speaking, I felt like on our trip to Europa Park we had a better level of cast and better hotel service/food quality/merchandise quality than Disney. The cleanliness and maintainance was better than DLP. The big difference is that they do not have loader cast members on the attractions in the same level of abundance, and of course the attractions are not quite as OTT.
Originally Posted By leemac <<Did Disney calculate with Germany when creating DLRP? Didn't Disney do a research before building it? I mean the company built too many hotels and that implies that Disney expected more Germans.>> We got the mix wrong - the attendance numbers weren't too far from the mark but there were two mix issues: 1) Highly skewed to weekend traffic - so hotels were regularly full Friday and Saturday nights but outside of school holidays it was tough to fill 5,000+ rooms; and 2) Too many French visitors. We didn't anticipate more than 50% of guests would be French and over 30% being local. That destroyed both the RevPAR for the hotels and guest spend.
