The Colonel's Choice: Dreamworld appoints KFC manager to top position

In a move that isn't without precedent, Macquarie Leisure Trust Group have once again appointed an theme park industry outsider to the Gold Coast theme parks' top position. Former operating officer of New Zealand KFC, Starbucks and Pizza Hut properties will take the position effective immediately, having spent a year with the diverse leisure company as their COO.

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Come on guys, we need some more KFC jokes, hopefully better than these... -"Noel Demp-sey, I like it like that" -His contract had 11 secret terms and conditions. -Big 6 ride variety bucket. -They may have an outstanding saftey record, but how do you know if its fresh, not frozen?

This appointment leaves a fowl taste in my mouth, but let's not count our chickens before they're hatched. Maybe he'll put in a cool slide like Wet'n'Wild's Twister but we're guaranteed a grande experience now he's a pizza the action. *dodges hail of tomatoes and flees*

... well, someone had to get the bad jokes out of the way. Who better than me? I'll come up with something funny soon though.

Noel is actually a really lovely gent from what i can gather. Im really quite interested to see what direction he takes the parks in. As ive said previously, A nice step up would be really helpful about now.

Chicken jokes and his niceness aside, this move typifies the sort of management and vision we have come to expect from Macquarie Leisure. Now granted it's too early to make any real judgement, but the fact is you don't hire someone with this skillset to grow Dreamworld into a world-class theme park. You look at the management team at any theme park in the world -- even smaller ones -- and you will find that they come either from within the park or from other parks. This indicates that the skillset needed to manage theme parks is highly specialised. The fact that Dreamworld has continued to completely dillute their product over recent years through brand affiliations, cutbacks in quality and short-term vision when it comes to new major attractions, suggests that there is no interest at all for them to run Dreamworld the same way as almost every other successful theme park out there. An appointment like this only strengthens this argument. The question also needs to be asked; why does the park have such a high turnover rate? How can any level of long term growth be achieved with CEOs staying onboard for only a few years before moving on. Whether it's a sign of the kind of environment that exists, or just purely coincidental that all of the park's CEOs have had such a short run I don't know but it is very interesting to me.