Thanks to a sponsorship deal with Pepsi, it actually costs the park very little. Holiday World’s Will Koch will explain more in the next issue of Park World.

At Konge Parken in Norway, which you can read about right now on pages 38 and 39, they actually offer all manner of freebies to guests: Free sunscreen, camera hire, cod liver oil and milk – but no soft drinks. “We want to do something different from other parks so there’s also a health angle to all most of our giveaways,” details the park’s Håkon Lund.

Whatever the reason for each of these two parks’ benevolence, gestures like these buy untold goodwill with guests. As both facilities are relatively isolated, they also provide a point of differentiation that helps pull people from further a field and, crucially, keep them happy until they get home ...when they go and tell their friends too.What ‘added extra’ could you offer your visitors?

Located in the city of Stavanger, Konge Parken entertains around 150,000 guests a year, up by over 200 per cent since the Lund family took over, but still probably not enough yet to attract the attention of the various acquisition vehicles circling the European attractions industry right now.

Very active in this area is the Blackstone Group-backed Merlin Entertainments.When we spoke to Merlin CEO Nick Varney earlier in

2006 he suggested more consolidation would be on the cards soon, and indeed Merlin had more moves up its sleeve. Its recent acquisition of Italy’s largest amusement park, Gardaland, suddenly propels it into the number one visitor attraction slot in Europe, and it doesn’t intend to stop there.

It’s amazing where a multi-billion private equity fund can get you.

Impressive though.

Owen Ralph - Editor

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