Alain Trouvé, Compagnie des Alpes (pictured): It was a good season, attendance was up across our parks, and so were per caps. The French stayed in France, the Dutch stayed in Holland, the Belgians in Belgium, and so on. This was good for our local parks. If we look at Disney though, they had problems because their guests have to travel much further. For Compagnie des Alpes as a whole, it was a double success. The ski resorts did well because they got a lot of snow, and then it was good for the leisure parks too. So we can invest!
Dallas Jones, Beech Bend Park & Splash Lagoon, USA: With the economy in the state it has been in, we expected to be down this year and we are down overall. But there have been a few bright spots. The general public business has been up about 10% and visitors to our park were very happy with the experience and value for money. The negative side was in our corporate business – company picnics and our camping. That business was down almost 50%. That has really hurt this year. We are optimistic about 2010 and will be making a major announcement soon about additions for next year.
Magnus T Wetterö. Skara Sommarland, Sweden: Our unique rollercoaster Tranan [S&S’ first Freefly Coaster] was of course this year’s big news, which we are very proud of. We´ve had a very good season, even though we had the wettest summer for many years in our region. We are a two-piece park that offers our guests Northern Europe’s largest aqua park and an amusement park. One of our challenges for this summer season was to make the park less weather dependent. The spending per customer has increased and our research shows that our guests are very satisfied. We are already looking forward to our next season!
Steve Pastusak, Jolly Roger Amusement Park, USA: When we get good weather we’ve been fine. We had horrible weather in June, then we made a great comeback to finish the season above our expectations.
