Wednesday, March 21, 2007 Theme park looks for hotel partner
THE country’s leading world-class theme park is eyeing to increase traffic and revenues, foreseeing a strong demand for quality leisure parks.
Dennis Cruz, Enchanted Kingdom vice president for marketing services and business development, said the number of visitors has grown to more than seven percent in the last five years.
“We use to average around 800,000 visitors every year, but now it has grown to about a million annually,” he told reporters in a press conference at Bo’s Coffee shop in SM City Cebu last Friday.
Of its one million visitors, Cruz said walk-ins, who are predominantly Filipinos, account for 60 percent.
According to him, foreigners account for only a single digit of the total number of visitors since most of them have grown accustomed to popular theme parks such as Disneyland.
In terms of revenues, Cruz said Enchanted Kingdom has averaged about 15 percent yearly.
He said 60 to 70 percent of its revenues come from ticket admission sales, while about 30 to 40 percent sales are generated from retail and merchandise items.
Cruz admitted “this it not a healthy picture (as) the bigger share should be on the sale of retail items.”
This is why, Cruz said earlier, Enchanted Kingdom is gearing towards enhancing its facilities to lure more visitors especially as more Filipinos are showing interest on world-class theme parks.
Among those in the pipeline is a plan to partner with a hotel operator where Enchanted Kingdom can design the hotel and may make it appear “magical and child-friendly.”
Cruz also said firm plans to eventually emulate Walt Disney Studios as it is mulling to expand its existing 16-hectare property to 25 hectares, which will include an animation center located beside the theme park. (MMM)
