Has Covid helped Parks?

[Ranger]

There's no doubt in my mind that theme parks all over the world have been hit hard by COVID - 19. However, if you take a step back and look at Australian theme parks, some major announcements have been made for our parks. Big Dipper, Actventure and the Big Banana expansion have all been announced.

[Slick]

Absolutely not. People have been made redundant, attraction pipelines have been delayed for three of the country's biggest parks and there's still been massive revenue issues given the lack of international & interstate tourism. To say anything else is just trying to make a causation from correlation, which is the equivalent of suggesting that vaccines cause autism.

[Gazza]

Those would have been in the works prior to Covid, and probably would have been announced sooner if it weren't for Covid.

It empathically hasn't helped.

[Tim Dasco]

27 minutes ago, Slick said:

Absolutely not. People have been made redundant, attraction pipelines have been delayed for three of the country's biggest parks and there's still been massive revenue issues given the lack of international & interstate tourism. To say anything else is just trying to make a causation from correlation, which is the equivalent of suggesting that vaccines cause autism.

I have to disagree. It has been a nightmare for some See NSW, VIC and QLD. But it's the best thing to have happened for some other smaller parks. 

In Perth both parks have just been insane. Adventure World has never had to stop selling season passes every in their history, and they hit this a month into their season this year. They have had their best season ever. Same goes with Outback Splash reaching capacity the other day (not covid capacity but physical licensing capacity) So I agree where this coming from.

Edited January 4, 2021 by Tim Dasco

[Gazza]

Perth might be a special case because you simultaneously have a Covid Free population with few limits on activities, combined with an inability to travel east or to Bali, meaning local options are getting more of a captive market.

It's definitely been bad for the GC Parks, which needed assistance, and of course terrible for the Vic Parks. NSW im not too sure of, but they did close early for the year right?

Edited January 4, 2021 by Gazza

[Aw hype]

9 hours ago, Gazza said:

Perth might be a special case because you simultaneously have a Covid Free population with few limits on activities, combined with an inability to travel east or to Bali, meaning local options are getting more of a captive market.

It's definitely been bad for the GC Parks, which needed assistance, and of course terrible for the Vic Parks. NSW im not too sure of, but they did close early for the year right?

As Gazza said, Perth is an exception to this. Given we've been relatively un-effected, and because it's not like we actually (AW and OS) relied on interstate or international tourism that heavily pre-covid anyways. People have also got more disposable income over here courtesy of the stimulus package, being able to continue working and the inability to blow all this in a bender up in Bali or On the Gold Coast (shit examples but you get my jist). We were also lucky enough that our lockdown occurred in the park off seasons, so loss of income due to closure was close to nil.

For the most part though, both domestically and internationally, Covid has and is metaphorically speaking shat and shitting all over the industry and i don't think there's really much questioning that.

[StingRay]

Covid has been the biggest kick in the guts ever to this industry. The GFC was not anywhere near as detrimental as Covid has been.

Gold Coast theme parks have played a decent trump card tho. Tell the future plans now while everyone is down and it'll hype people up to visit the parks whenever normality returns. Victoria and New South Wales have some how managed to keep heads above water. Not without challenges tho. The west coast has survived simply because no one can travel. 

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

On 05/01/2021 at 11:08 AM, StingRay said:

Covid has been the biggest kick in the guts ever to this industry

I think you're forgetting when Ansett collapsed, we had SARS, the Bali Bombings and September 11....

[Yyosh]

6 hours ago, AlexB said:

I think you're forgetting when Ansett collapsed, we had SARS, the Bali Bombings and September 11....

Don't forget about bird flu, the 2003 bushfires, the collapse of HIH Insurance and the Iraq war!

[Ranger]

Was this a dumb question?

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

Not at all, in my opinion.

Whilst the initial responses were firmly negative (and rightly so given the local circumstances) it has highlighted to us the differences between the 'big GC parks' that rely massively on non-local visitation (based on statements from their senior management that they would go under if the borders remained closed) during their peak periods, and the contrast to the smaller, local parks such as the ones in Perth that have gone gangbusters being the only local source of leisure-related tourism when the borders are closed.

Its easy (especially when you're local to the GC parks) to think that their plight is the same for all amusement leisure venues in the country, and its nice to get some perspective from outside SEQ.

[rappa]

Its also worth noting interestingly that whilst the big GC parks have reported downturns the GC as a whole has seen HUGE visitation in the SEP-JAN period. Somewhat higher than even normal. Many smaller attractions are reporting record numbers this year. 
 

An anomaly that has not really been seen in other destinations or states.