Main Aspects of Albion Theme Park - Report Example

ALBION THEME PARK By Introduction Tom, the father of two children Jack and Julie in the 1980s, had established Albion theme park. The park was built in a farm inherited by Tom in Hampshire, but since he had little interest in farming, he left most of the arable farming to his manager. He increasingly focused on running visit days for local schoolchildren that wanted to see the local farm and to see and touch the animals. The visit days became so popular especially during the lambing season that this lead to attracting school children from the area during the period of March to October. One of the first rides was a hay cart pulled by a tractor and this was meant to take one around the farm. Tom eventually introduced more rides as well as attractions in the farm over the years and sold off a lot of the farming land. With the money that came out of this, Tom Decide to reorganize the farm attractions that were around three themes linked t history of Britain. For the vision, it was to ensure the families go and enjoy themselves on a day out away from stresses and strains that they encountered in their day to day lives (Anton 2007, 34). Over the years, there were new rides that were added to the park, and all of them complied with the original themes, which remained the same. The was the Farmland – a small petting zoo of primary farm animals with demonstrations of old farming crafts at which children could try their hands such as milking cheese making and spinning. There was also the St. George’s Challenge – rides and attractions themed around the legend on St George (the area in which the new roller coaster Dragon’s Tail is located). Then the last part was Robin Hood’s Hideaway – a wooden area containing an adventure playground with slides, ropes walks. This paper, therefore, is going to handle the issues at hand in this Albion Theme Park, analyzing two factors in the macro environment (extended to the United Kingdom theme park industry) that might significantly influence the development of Albion Theme Park. The other task is how the other theme parks in the United Kingdom industry affect the Albion Theme Park. Other relevant areas to be handled by the paper will be the marketing issues, human resource issues (organizational, cultural and structural), operations issues and the financial issues. Then conclude with a conclusion and proposal for the Albion Theme Park about the strategy (setting out proposals for the strategic direction of the business) and implementation (setting out proposals as to how changes in the company should be prioritized and introduced) ( Bentley 2008, 46). To begin with, the two factors in the macro environment that would significantly influence the growth of the Albion Theme Park would be the seasonal weather condition or changes that make them open for some months (eight months) and close during others (four months). The other factor being the government regulations that they have to go by or risk being fined or even closed as being the worst scenario. To begin with, the issue of the seasonal weather changes is that this made the park be opened only for eight months, a period that was running from the month of March to October. During this season, the park hired around 200 part-time, temporary staff members that would be added to the 35 full-time permanent staff. It would be difficult as the park expanded since it would be difficult to hire the right caliber of staff. Thus, it would affect all of the theme park industry in the United Kingdom, as they would have to operate under the same weather meaning they would also have to close during the winter season. The other issue in this macro environment area would be the government regulations (Kane 2013, 53). The regulations put by the government, for example, the health, law and safety needs on the minimum wage. It would mean that they have to meet the employee’s minimum wage bill or risk them being sued by either one of them or even the government itself. The health and safety requirements in the park as well need to be at par with the one set by the government or if they are not in any case the complying with them, the park might risk closure. Without consideration when they are trying to find a solution and to try to develop the Albion Theme Park, it might affect them at a very high level. That makes these macro-environmental issues be of utmost importance since they determine the growth of the Albion Theme Park very much (Laws 2006, 65). Another area of concern is how the other forces in the United Kingdom theme park industry impact on the Albion Theme Park. The other theme parks in the UK industry have to have an impact on the Albion Theme Park since they are in the same line of business and they want the same line of customers. Therefore, this will mean that either they gain or lose customers depending on which of them the customers prefer. They might also lose or gain staff depending on the wages they offer among other reasons that might be of relevance (Sehlinger 2011, 76). The other issues that are going to of importance in this report are; marketing issues, human resource issues, operations issues and the financial issues. To begin with is that the Albion Theme Park was facing more competition than it ever did. Though the competition is not direct within a 55-mile radius, there is the increase in competing with other attractions for discretionary expenditures. There are increased staffing problems; this is since they have difficulty in hiring the right people since they are only open from March to October. The staff also feels powerless in trying to handle customers with genuine grievances since customers have to be handled with care lest they go and decide not to return to the park and opt for another competing park. There is also the problem of increasing labor costs, knowing how many staffs have to be available on site on a particular day (since visitor numbers fluctuate so much), there is also the problem of deciding on whether to change the whole approach to food provision at Albion Theme Park. The issue that was of great concern or complaint was that there was too much endless paperwork that needed increase in staff members to ease work load. There was as well the problem of things getting more complex and costly. The others are provision of a one-tier ticket system, longer wait times (which meant less customer satisfaction and an increase in problems with customers), and the other problem was seasonality and vulnerability. That is, the British weather that causes the park to close during the winter. Those are some of the analysis done on the current issues that are facing the Albion Theme Park at the time (Todd 2004, 58). After analysis done, these are some of the possible solutions that were come to with the different heads of management in the Park. There was a proposal to increase the revenue in that, the revenue per customer be increased with the visit per customer. Increase on the average spending per visit would attract additional customers. They also proposed to in increasing the market spending to communicate to a wider public about the existence of the new attractions in the park and to offer suitable promotions to entice the customers to come and visit the park. The park also needed to compete for their staff with other competitors and to comply with the law on the minimum wage bill and increasingly stringent government health and safety requirements. During the meeting, there was also a possible solution in sticking to the core business instead of having food outlets within the park and simple franchise the food outlets to known brands. Alternatively another proposal was that they embark or maybe expand into on-site accommodation and try to gain economies of scale that might be of great help to them (Zezulka 2005,87). To solve the issues that were arising in the park, there was need to target a high spend sector of customers. That is, affluent segments of the population are willing to spend more on admissions so that they gain preferred status and would not have to stand in the queue. They would also have to decide on one major incident that would make them have an increase in the insurance costs significantly and if there could be the possibility in making money out of gifts and souvenirs. All of the above are potential solutions that have come as a result of critical analysis of the current issues that the Albion Theme Park was experiencing. If the management would be willing to try out these possible solutions then there would be a possibility in making them go away (Kane 2013, 66). In conclusion, there were proposals that are made with respect to the strategy and the implementation of the same. This would make it easy in trying to solve the issues at hand. The proposed strategic direction that the business should take would include the following; taking all the ideas that were proposed by management not leaving even one of them out of the equation. To scrutinize and analyze all of them one after the other and put them in order of the most urgent and importance and the positive affect that they would bring on the business. Choose the order on how to implement them considering the previous statement. The ideas should all be given priority and none of them left out of the strategic direction even if they would not be implemented in the end. The proposed implementation on how the changes in the company should be prioritized and introduced will entail the changes being taken positively by every member of the management in order not to cause any disagreements that would hinder the implementation and eventually the growth of the company. The changes should be prioritized starting with the most important and with the greatest positive impact on the organization down to the least important and with the least impact. Lastly, for no implementations to come through without any setbacks there should be any disagreements every other time at the top of management as it proved to be before. Reference list ANTON CLAVÉ, S. (2007). The global theme park industry. Wallingford, UK, CABI. http://public.eblib.com/EBLPublic/PublicView.do?ptiID=312875. BENTLEY, N. (2008). Contemporary British fiction. Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press. KANE, J. (2013). The architecture of pleasure: British amusement parks 1900-1939. LAWS, D. A. (2006). Gardens by the bay: exploring public gardens of the greater bay area. Menlo Park, CA, Windy Hill Publications. SEHLINGER, B., TESTA, L., & BLEIBERG, L. (2011). Britains best days out theme parks & attractions. Chichester, England, John Wiley. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&scope=site&db=nlebk&db=nlabk&AN=543187. TODD, R., & FLORA, L. M. R. (2000). Theme parks, rainforests and sprouting wastelands: European essays on theory and performance in contemporary British fiction. Amsterdam, Rodopi. ZEZULKA-MAILLOUX, G. E. M., & GIFFORD, J. (2003). Culture + the state: critical works from the proceedings of the 2003 conference at the University of Alberta. Edmonton, CRC Humanities Studio. Read More