Theme Parks Find It’s Small World After All

With competition fierce and attendance stagnant, the nation’s theme park operators are hoping to boost business this summer by widening the choice of attractions, especially those aimed at families with young children.

The play-to-the-family strategy comes amid signs that the thrill of amusement parks may be waning. Attendance was flat or lower in 1998 at most major parks, including declines at four of the five big Southern California parks, according to Amusement Business magazine.

Southland park operators attribute much of last year’s decline to El Nino rains that drove away early-season customers, but a broader trend also is at work.

While overall travel spending is up nearly 50% this decade in California, the Golden State’s share of U.S. vacation trips fell from 11.4% in 1991 to 9.9% last year, according to figures from D.K. Shifflet consulting firm in McLean, Va.

California tourism officials blame a failure to publicize the state’s charms. California’s tourism marketing budget was 24th among the 50 states until this year, when a self-imposed tax on tourist businesses took effect. The special assessment will add $4.5 million to the marketing budget, bringing the total to $11.6 million--12th-highest among the states.

“Over the last decade, the competition has increased ferociously, and not just from other states,” said Caroline Beteta, executive director of the California Travel and Tourism Commission. “It’s cities, regions and international destinations, too--Australia, Hong Kong, Europe, the U.K. Everyone has seen the lucrative value of bringing in visitors.”

In Florida, visits from Brazil and other countries with economic troubles fell sharply last year, and Walt Disney Co.’s new Animal Kingdom park gobbled more attendance than expected from other parks. Travel officials there point to aggressive marketing by other vacation destinations, noting that casino and industry groups plunk down $256 million a year pitching Las Vegas, more than twice what the Orlando area spends.

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With competitors as varied as adventure travel, cruise ships and casinos turning up the heat, the theme park emphasis on the family market represents a relatively cheap bet on expanding market share, analysts say. At about $120 million, Universal Studios’ “Jurassic Park” thrill ride cost nearly as much as the entire new Legoland park opened by toy maker Lego in Carlsbad this spring.

“The engine that drives the train is the roller coaster, but you just can’t go year after year putting a big coaster in,” said Richard Kinzel, chief executive of Cedar Fair, whose five parks include Knott’s Berry Farm in Buena Park and Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio.

Aiming attractions at youngsters also helps parks market to the real leisure decision-makers of the family: mothers.

Cedar Point, for example, has long billed its Magnum XL-200 as “the best roller coaster on the planet.” But ads touting Magnum’s 10th anniversary close by showing “Peanuts” characters strolling the midway with a family. (The park’s latest addition is Camp Snoopy, a “Peanuts”-themed family play area first created at Knott’s Berry Farm.) “You plant that seed--we have the big rides, but also Snoopy and the other characters,” Kinzel said.

At Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia, known for rides with 100-mph blastoffs and 6 1/2-second free falls, this year’s top addition is an expanded Bugs Bunny World area with 15 attractions, including a giant playhouse and a pint-sized roller coaster. It’s part of a major push by owner Premier Parks Inc. of Oklahoma City to exploit the licensed Warner Bros. characters to attract more families. And at Legoland, where the Danish toy company spent $130 million to lure the 2-to-12-year-old set, one big “thrill ride” is the Kid Power Tower, where riders pull themselves up a track 35 feet before releasing the rope and drifting gently back to Earth.

The marketing professionals boil down the power of these family pitches to a single emotion: guilt.

The feeling, common in households in which both parents work full time, prompted one out of four business travelers to take children on a business trip last year, according to Peter Yesawich of Yesawich, Pepperdine & Brown, an Orlando, Fla.-based leisure consulting and marketing firm.

Guilt also makes children a major influence in picking destinations for 60% of family vacations, according to the National Leisure Travel Monitor, an annual survey by Yesawich’s group and Yankelovich Partners.

“A vacation for a contemporary family is almost a mini family reunion,” Yesawich said. “When you and your [spouse] finally lock in the time for the three or five or seven days you can get off, there’s a higher probability you’ll bring the kids along, because you think you don’t spend enough time with them.”

Yesawich detects a growing interest in “multi-generational travel”--not just parents and kids, but also the grandparents. “Vacation is a terrific surrogate,” he said, for those who can’t carve out family time at home.

Salomon Smith Barney leisure analyst Jill S. Krutick applauds industry efforts to broaden its offerings. “They are trying to create a family experience,” she said. Premier, a stock she recommends, has an edge because “they have the benefit of the Warner Bros. characters to really draw the crowds.”

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The phenomenal success of Walt Disney World--operating profit is in the $1-billion range annually--results from pushing the something-for-everyone strategy to its limit, Krutick said.

Besides parks, the Florida complex includes the elder hostel-style Disney Institute, 99 holes of golf, the Pleasure Island nightclub zone, the Disney Cruise Line, and amateur sports and race-car facilities.

As for the industry as a whole, “everyone is in a market-share grab,” said Seidler Cos. analyst Jeffrey Logsdon. He notes that it’s not a good idea to underestimate Disney, but he is more skeptical of other efforts to broaden franchises, saying that parks such as Six Flags and Knott’s probably will continue to rise and fall on the strength of the major new rides they add.

Extra attractions, longer stays, and a big run-up in ticket prices have pushed the cost of theme park vacations ever higher over the years. But so far the extensive surveys conducted by Disney and Universal indicate that customers aren’t fazed, said Norm Merritt, a former top marketer for both companies.

“By and large, people still see it as a pretty good value compared to the competition--say, going skiing or taking a cruise,” Merritt said.

That could change, though, if the economy heads south. Merritt figures a sharp economic downturn could slice theme park attendance by up to 10%.

Facing a wealth of competition, Disneyland plans to build on its lead as California’s most visited theme park with a $1.4-billion Anaheim expansion that opens in 2001. It includes a second theme park, a luxury hotel and an entertainment center, Downtown Disney, all designed to defend its family franchise while reaching out to more sophisticated and affluent guests.

“We’re not just a theme park company anymore,” Disney theme parks and resorts chief Judson Green told a recent meeting of young executives in Anaheim. “We’re a travel and tourism company.”

Reflecting that focus, the bulk of the work underway at the Disneyland complex is outside the park, including a renovation of the Disneyland Hotel.

At Disneyland itself, the only major change this summer is the remodeling of the Swiss Family Treehouse into a Tarzan theme. The walk-through attraction originally re-created the setting of a 1960 Disney live-action movie about a shipwrecked family; the new look ties in to this summer’s animated feature from the studio.

But in Florida, where the competition includes a huge new family-oriented park from Universal Studios, Disney is opening multiple new attractions this year at its four parks and Downtown Disney entertainment center.

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The Magic Kingdom, modeled on Disneyland, is adding rides based on Buzz Lightyear and Winnie the Pooh, along with the Main Street Electrical Parade, an import from Anaheim. The world’s fair-style Epcot has added the thrill ride Test Track. Disney-MGM Studios has Fantasmic, a live-action and light show from Disneyland, and the looping Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster.

Animal Kingdom has opened a new land, Asia, including a white-water rafting attraction. And Downtown Disney now includes a permanent venue for the circus acrobatics of Cirque du Soleil.

A few miles from Disney World, Universal’s high-gloss Islands of Adventure park next to Universal Studios Florida includes Dr. Seuss- and dinosaur-themed areas as well as cutting-edge thrill rides--a package aimed straight at Disney’s family constituency.

Islands officially opened Friday with a CityWalk entertainment mall beside it; the first of three high-end hotels being built with investment partners Rank Organization and Loews Hotels will open later this year. Total cost for the new Universal complex: about $2.5 billion.

By contrast, Universal Studios Hollywood this summer has stuck to its “ride the movies” theme with the $65-million Terminator 2 3-D, based on the apocalyptic action film “Terminator 2.”

SeaWorld in San Diego also is broadening its offerings with a $10-million South Seas-themed raft ride, Shipwreck Rapids, designed to change its image to that of an adventure park. Owner Anheuser-Busch Cos. is adding similar rides at several other SeaWorld parks, and has added the “adventure park” tag to the names of all its parks.

At Knott’s, Cedar Fair has been adding thrill rides to goose up the park’s old-fashioned mix of family-oriented shows, coasters and carnival-style arcades.

GhostRider, a $24-million wooden roller coaster, is new this summer (it actually opened last December). And Cedar Fair bought and is cleaning up the dowdy old Buena Park Hotel, which will become a Radisson, and is planning to add a separate water-slide park in 2000.

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The Bugs Bunny World revamp at Six Flags Magic Mountain is among six such family-oriented additions at parks operated by owner Premier.

By contrast, Premier is adding big thrill rides at just three Six Flags parks, despite their reputation as catering to coaster enthusiasts. But Premier officials say they will continue to add big rides as in the past, which has meant a major roller coaster every other year at Six Flags Magic Mountain. The park got its last one, Riddler’s Revenge, in 1998, and is due for another next year.

Premier also has reduced admission prices for anyone under 4 feet tall--the cutoff for many thrill rides--to $9.99 at Magic Mountain to reinforce its family pitch. And it is redesigning kiddie rides so parents can sit on them too. New rides include a toned-down roller coaster, Canyon Blaster, and the free-fall ride Sylvester’s Pounce and Bounce.

Youngsters are important “in terms of the numbers we want to attract,” Premier President Gary Story said. “Although they may not spend at the level of adults and teenagers, they certainly buy cotton candy and T-shirts and all the other things we sell.”

Children also are important customers for a longer-term reason.

“Appeal to the little kids with characters, and you’ve got a customer for life,” Story said.

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Just Visiting

Strong national and state economies have contributed to higher spending by travelers in California. But competition for the tourist dollar is strong. California’s share of U.S. leisure travel, in trips taken:

1998: 9.9% of leisure trips*

*Estimate

Source: D.K. Shifflet