Is a Dubai theme park’s closure this month a one-off, or the primary signal of a brand new spherical of failures within the world sights trade?
Dubai Parks and Resorts this month introduced the everlasting closure of Bollywood Parks Dubai, one of many three parks that opened at that resort in late 2016. Themed to the Hindi movie trade primarily based in Mumbai, Bollywood Parks supplied great ornamental touches, in addition to a enjoyable live-action stunt present and media-based motion-base and flying theater reveals, with a brand new GCI picket coaster seemingly able to open quickly.
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At first look, Dubai must be a major marketplace for theme park improvement. UK-based analysis firm Euromonitor ranked Dubai because the second-most visited metropolis on this planet final 12 months, trailing solely Paris. On paper, Bollywood additionally appears to be like like a can’t-miss theme for a park. Films lengthy have supplied essentially the most compelling IP for themed sights, and Bollywood movies are wildly fashionable around the globe. Put these collectively and a Bollywood-themed park in Dubai ought to have be a straightforward winner, proper?
The late Disney Legend Harrison “Buzz” Value set a permanent normal for the trade by making a mannequin for feasibility that has helped parks around the globe endure by way of enterprise cycles that shutter many different firms. But Buzz’s system works as a result of it calls for that enterprise leaders look deeper than top-level tourism numbers.
Set 40 miles from the Dubai’s major airport, Dubai Parks and Resorts stood removed from different vacationer sights within the metropolis. In contrast to rival, air-conditioned sights, Bollywood Parks was an out of doors theme park, leaving guests baking within the Center East’s searing warmth for a lot of the 12 months.
Maybe buyers thought that the park’s meant viewers from South Asia wouldn't thoughts the solar and the warmth. However India will not be a market the place tens of millions of individuals grew up with theme parks, in contrast to in the US or Europe. And guests to the United Arab Emirates from the West would moderately go to indoor, air-conditioned parks with Hollywood themes.
Although Bollywood Parks Dubai was impressed by India’s film trade, it grew out of Southern California. Pasadena-based studio Mycotoo labored on a lot of the inventive design for the park. It was good work that deserved an even bigger viewers.
Whereas it's uncommon for theme parks to fail, that does occur. Southern California has seen the closure of Marineland in Palos Verdes and Busch Gardens Los Angeles in Van Nuys. However the closest U.S. instance to Bollywood Parks’ flameout is perhaps Exhausting Rock/Freestyle Music Park in Myrtle Seaside, S.C. Regardless of that metropolis’s recognition as a vacationer vacation spot, that park barely made it by way of two seasons earlier than closing in 2009.
Bollywood Parks’ failure reveals that a enjoyable park with a stable theme in a well-liked vacationer market doesn't assure success. You will need to discover the appropriate mixture of theme, story, expertise, location, market and pricing to win clients. That so many parks have gotten it proper through the years shouldn't blind anybody to the truth that it stays very doable to get this flawed.