Water parks are considered as a destination location and serve as a major attraction for families. Many people are even willing to travel from different cities and countries to have a funfilled experience at water parks. This is because water parks are much more than just slides. They foster pure and unadulterated joy and offer people the opportunity to create unique memories that can be cherished for a lifetime.
Many hotel owners are realizing the value of water parks and catching up with the trend of adding slides to enhance consumer satisfaction, increase customer’s duration of stay, create differentiation and improve the preference rating of the hotel. Also, since water parks offer faster payback and additional experience, amusement parks have started to add their own water park sections.
If you are someone who is running a water park or planning to incorporate a thriving water park in your Hotel, then this blog is for you. We will have an in-depth look as to what it takes to enhance the guest experience, increase per cap spending, and run a successful water park.
Let’s get right to it, shall we!
1) Design For a Better Guest Experience
Creating an inviting environment that is comfortable, accommodating, and fun is the key to long terms success. You can create an atmosphere your guests would want to linger in by having an attractive mix of landscaping, exciting water rides, fun-filled water play structures, kid’s play area, shade areas, deck spaces, cabanas, and lounge stations.
For your rides and attractions, implement a well-thought design to ensure smooth entry and exit. A seamless entry and exit transition will eliminate the possibility of overcrowding and enhance the guest experience. There should be nothing between your guest and the ride experience!
We at Arihant can help you with macro as well as micro planning to enhance the guest experience. From where the entry begins, to how guests interact with the attractions, and how they are motivated to experience other areas once the attraction ends, we handle the minutest aspects of design through our hands-on park operating experience.
2) Strike a Balance Between Delight & Thrill
Before designing your park, it is important to know that different age groups prefer different thrills and delight levels. You must, therefore, judge your target demographic to evaluate the ideal attraction mix. Each guest is bound to experience peaks and troughs in energy levels throughout the day. Taking this factor into consideration, you must understand that more thrill doesn’t always mean a better experience and a better overall park. There needs to be a balance in activities that cater to the guest’s ‘relaxing’ moments as well.
To help you run a successful and thriving park, we at Arihant have developed a science of delight/thrill levels in attractions to compose a perfect balance in your water park. We have also dealt with 750+ projects across 59 Countries and have installed 3500+ products. What’s more, we have over 24 years of experience in running our own water park and have entertained over 5 million guests.
At this stage, we are talking from a plane of vast hands-on experience. From helping you create an in-depth feasibility study, to master planning and design, theme and concept development, installation and trials, after-sale service, and training academy for your staff, we take care of it all!
3) Help Your Guests Create Memories
When guests enter your water park, they are looking to move out of their everyday realities and step into a dream world. So offer them just that and help them create fun memories. You can do this by implementing the following sample ideas:
- Design cozy places for photos
- Have unique water play structures and attractive themes
- Have a unique thrill and adventure offering water slides
- Design and deploy mascots for kids engagement
- Merchandising at strategic locations within the park (most preferably the exit)
- Create shared experiences by hiring an event host who will conduct participation games, karaoke, etc.
At Arihant, we turn our client’s vision into reality by developing unique themes that help guests create cherished memories. For instance, a water park in South Asia wanted their guests to experience the thrill of racing through their aquatic structures. To align with their branding, we custom-designed their play structure into a visually appealing space that immerses guests into a highly engaging and visually appealing environment.
4) Install Food & Beverage Stalls at the Right Spots
The average time people spend enjoying attractions is 3.5 hours. By opening food and beverage stalls, your guests will find even more reasons to spend time in your park. Food and beverage stalls are also high on experience, high on revenue, and they serve as an attraction for a wide age group, making it a win-win situation for both your guests and your water park.
However, to create the best experience for your guests, you must ensure that the food and beverage outlets are at the right locations. For instance, lounging areas such as cocktail bars and snack stalls must be close to the wave pool. Also, it is best to have fast food retails situated near the kids’ area for parents to give their kids a yummy snack in between all the fun.
5) Leverage Technology
Today’s tech-savvy consumers don’t have the patience for slow service. When they enter your water park or wait in queues for rides, they expect a smooth entry system and information at their fingertips. This is where leveraging technology comes into play.
Have a mobile-optimized website and downloadable apps that provide rich media content. This way, guests can schedule their day before arrival, learn about rides and attractions, navigate the park through GPS mapping, and receive special offers.
Implement a QR code-based entry management system to improve queue management during entry. Provide your guests with RFID bands and cards to implement a cashless payment system for purchases within the park.
We hope you have gained some valuable insights from our blog. Feel free to connect with us, and our experienced team will assist you in building the ultimate water park that will entice your guests to come back, time and again!