A critique of the management of Thorpe Park

Thorpe Park

The author will critique the management of Thorpe Park. To do this, the topics of marketing, operations and impact management and visitor experience and quality are examined. In the first part, the marketing, operations and impact management and visitor experience and quality are examined. Part two is a critique that will focus upon improvement of the Thorpe Park visitor attraction. While focusing upon Thorpe Park problems, it notes what is going on well and will suggests how to improve upon these points as well.

By doing the above, the author seeks to improve the intangible aspects of the visitor experience and quality around which park profits are made. In this way, satisfied customers are created who will come back and patronize the park again in the future. This factor is frequently glossed over and causes parks to lose business and market share. The user experience is based upon the user's feelings and while these can not always be managed, they have to be taken into consideration to ensure the park's smooth running and profitability.

As we will note in the critique, Merlin Entertainment is a very large corporation that is in the amusement park business to make money. If they were not running and managing Thorpe Park with some efficiency and sense, they would either sell or close the park altogether without blinking an eye.. However, as noted above, the high quality of the user experience is the all encompassing goal of visitor attraction management.

If this is neglected, it is possible that any business can suffer, especially in such hard, recessionary economic times as exist currently. While new rides and attractions are great, they do not make up the entire park experience. The user experience and the quality of it is the key to maintaining the profitability and viability of the park. This would be unfortunate, as we have seen that Thorpe Park seems to have weathered the present recessionary downturn successfully to this point in time. More attention to this very important point can insure that it will do so into the foreseeable future to come. This is critical for the park's future success.

Part One

Background-

The Thorpe Park amusement park is a theme park based in Chertsey, Surrey, England. It was built in 1979 on the site of a gravel pit which was partially flooded, creating a water-based theme for the park. The park's first large roller coaster, Colossus, was added in 2002 (Thorpe Park 2012). In 2007, Tussauds was bought out by Merlin Entertainments, who now operate the park (Thorpe Park as a Business 2012, 4). There are a number of major attractions at Thorpe Park. These include: A) the Nemesis Inferno. This ride is a Bolliger & Mabillard inverted type roller coaster that features interlocking corkscrews with a pre-lift section that is themed around volcano scenery, B) the Colossus. This is an Intamin multi-looping type of rollercoaster with 10 inversions. C) the SAW: The Ride. This is a Gerstlauer Euro-Fighter that is themed completely around the SAW franchise, D) the Stealth. This is a launched roller coaster with speeds up to 80 miles per hour in 1.9 seconds. E) the X: No Way Out. This is an enclosed rollercoaster. It travels backwards in the dark, F) the Loggers Leap. This is the tallest log flume in Great Britain. G) the Tidal Wave. This is completely a 'water ride. H) the Storm Surge, the ride is rumored to have been built Hillbillies. I) the Swarm. This is a Wing Coaster that opened up on 15 March 2012 and is the most heavily themed ride in the park (Thorpe Park 2012).

Marketing

The marketing of theme parks are complex and dynamic, but well worth the trouble due to the amount of business it brings to a given area. In the case of Thorpe Park, it is the type of attraction made up of human-made buildings, structures and sites that are designed to attract visitors and are purpose-built to accommodate their needs and also for special needs (Visitor Attraction Management 2012). In this, the marketer is fortunate, due to the fact that the park itself was specifically built for the purpose of having visitors, which makes the marketing of the park less difficult than a national park or historical site that was never designed for accommodating park visitors. It needs to be packaged as a diversified destination with other attractions on site that are designed for new markets.

The park was bought out by the Tussauds Group. Tussauds embarked on a new marketing strategy to allow the two parks to simultaneously cater to different markets. The Chessington would be changed into a family park while Thorpe Park would be designed to for the teenage and young adult market. Tussauds was later bought out by the Merlin Group (Bose, 2012). While this organizational arrangement of two parks makes sense in terms of mergers, it could cause customer brand confusion as to which market each park services (de Chernatony and McDonald 1992, 4).

To make sure that the Chessington and Thorpe Parks will not be mixed up in the minds of customers it will be important for the Merlin Group to clearly orient the parks according to their prospective markets, namely, in our case, the Thorpe Park to the under eighteen youth market. To do this, it will be necessary to understand the motivation of the customer and that the core product benefit is made clear to the customer, that is that Thorpe Park will meet those needs for this market segment in terms of the market segmentation (Marketing of Attractions 2012). If the parks are mixed up in the minds of patrons, this would mean that there is bad market segmentation (Croft 1994, 54).

This is why the Merlin group has been busy marketing the new rides such as the Swarm to their target under 18 group of young people. In a marketing maneuver that was reminiscent of 1998's Oblivion ride, the Thorpe Park management started on-park marketing for the Swarm far ahead of the events in the summer of 2011 by cordoning off the Sunken Gardens (close to the Stealth) with a large metal fence, and a sign with the words "New Coaster the Swarm Coming 2012?. Two mock Police Officers were employed to guard the area/fence and to interact with the guests, instructing them to stay away from the site and keep moving along in a reverse psychology type of strategy. Atmospheric theming was also added to the area in the form of a CCTV camera and an air-raid siren with a man with a sandwich board warning of an invasion of insect people. This was also complete with a (Ukparknews 2011).

Operations and Impact Management

Fortunately, for the Merlin Group, it appears that this marketing campaign is paying off. The company says that it is confident of profits for the 2012 season. It comes after the company reported a 13.2 per cent rise in visitor numbers and 15.9 per cent boost in annual revenues. They also posted revenues of £928.4m for the year to 25 December 2011, up from £800.8m in 2010. The operating profit increased by 12.4 per cent to £222.5m. Merlin also said the rise has been boosted by higher visitor numbers growing to 46.4 million and the opening of new attractions such as the Swarm (Insidermedia.com 2012). Operations and impact management deals with the efficiency of the running of the park. Operations management is a field of study which began with the aim to improve productivity of manufacturing. It obviously also has an impact upon the smooth running of the park and the rides of the attractions as well as managing the visitors. Just as in a factory, there is input (equipment, capital, labour, etc.), process (park operations) and output (happy customers). The question is whether Merlin can configure the attractions and optimise their performance in capacity, efficiency and quality and deal with inevitable challenges such as equipment malfunctions. Based upon Thorpe Park's stellar performance in 2011, it appears that the variability is adequate. Uncertainty is the main problem, as evidenced with some problems below (Operations and Impact Management 2012). If patrons in the park have to wait too long on or to get on rides, this can negatively affect customer variability in the future. While waiting is unavoidable, it must be properly managed to avoid losing customers (Unep.fr. 2012).

Unfortunately, pieces of equipment such as the Swarm are sensitive. The new roller coaster came to a stop at Thorpe Park theme park on its first day. This left a group of park visitors stuck up a steep ascent for several minutes. The park management commented that a small technical problem caused a fail safe device to shut down the ride. They further said that it was back up and running within just a minutes of its having stopped. Park officials said that the fail-safe system shut the ride down and that health and safety was the main concern. Additionally, the airplane crash themes on the ride have been controversial and was criticised last year by the British Airline and Pilot Association as "tasteless"(Bbc.co.uk 2012). These issues can negatively affect the economic impact of the parks operations.

- Visitor Experience and Quality

As noted above, variability can have a huge impact on economics. However, the intangibles of visitor experience and quality have been affected as well. Visitor perceptions have a lot of relationship to the visitor experience and its quality. This is what the attractions sell and it is much more abstract and harder to qualify which is why this critical feature of management is often ignored (Week 8: Visitor Experience 2012). The performance of the attraction itself will have a direct impact upon user experience and satisfaction (ibid). Swarbroke notes "Visitor attractions are at the heart of the tourism industry, they are motivators that make people want to take a trip in the first place (Swarbroke, 2002)."

This author visited the park on March 21th, 2012 and had a chance to play the Swarm, which was operating normally. As for the malfunction incident, they believe that this will have some effect on the number of visitors who want to play the new ride and will affect the park's income. This is due to the payment structure of the park. By paying the admission fee, the customer can play most of the older rides for free (by not all the rides). New ones such as the Swarm have to be paid for separately. However, because the malfunction happened on the first day, it is understandable that a problem might occur. Moreover, the target of the park are young people, so they tend to forget this minor malfunction and give it a try as the incident was not serious.

As far as wait times, the author got the fast track ticket to play the new Swarm ride but from there were not so many guests as expected for a new ride. However, this maybe because it was near the closing time for the park. The author noticed that there were more than hundred of people waiting to play on the ride. The waiting time board said 45 minutes (which is unrealistic). As the ride can carry around 28 people at a time and it takes only 45 seconds to play, they could have been quickly and easily accommodated so that the user experience and quality would not have been adversely affected.

Part Two-Improvement of the Attractions

In all, the author found the user experience satisfactory. It appears as though the present season should be as good for Thorpe Park as the 2011 season was. However, as with any major new ride, the Swarm will have problems. This will be a problem for the management to overcome so it does not negatively affect the user experience quality, especially at busy times when people might have to wait and tempers would be up. This will only work its way out with time. The other problem is the payment structure where some rides have to be paid for separately. If there was one park fee, this could overcome the problem and increase the park efficiency process. There also could have been more live entertainment in the park. This gives an air of spontaneity that the author believes was less that optimal. Bands such as You Me at Six recently revealed their new song the Swarm which was written for Thorpe Park's new roller coaster (Sugar Scape 2012).

Thorpe Park Marketing

Thorpe Park is very good at all of the aspects of its marketing and this has proven results. They follow the 4 P's, which is otherwise known as the Marketing Mix. The 4 P's for marketing Thorpe Park are a) Place b) Product c) Price d) Promotion (Belohlavek 2008, 14).

The park was located in a very good spot that is completely surrounded by water. This can be used as a river and attracts people for the wet rides. It also attracts people due to its nice views. Thorpe uses the water scenery to advantage on the rides (Fyall, Leask, Garrod and Wanhill 2008, 65). The park is just some twenty miles from the very centre of London and very close to the M25 and M3. This gives it good access roads for the public which have to travel from a distance to get to there. The road itself is a tourist attraction (Barkham 2012).

Recommendations for Improvement-

The problem with the park is definitely the wait times. This makes it very time consuming to use the park and this makes the user experience negative. The whole idea behind a theme park is to be timeless and this cuts into that feeling. Further, waiting only makes the user edgy and nervous, causing unnecessary irritations. No one wants to go to a park where they have to wait.

Also, there needs to be one fee for the park. This would lower wait times and speed up the lines at the rides. Otherwise, the ticket system needs to be revamped by providing more ticket sellers and more lines to buy tickets. The fast track tickets need to be able to be used on all of the rides and not just the older ones.