Tidbits from around the theme park industry

[hopemax]

With the latest reports out from Disney, I've been poking around to see what everyone else is reporting.

Six Flags - 2nd quarter earnings will be released next Monday. In the last couple of months they've signed new sponsorship agreements with Coca-Cola, Frito-Lay and Kraft Foods. And Bill Gates filed with the SEC that he owns 8.6% of the company.

Cedar Fair - 2nd quarter earnings will be released on Thursday. July numbers are up 3%, but guest spending is down 2%. Water park attendance is up 15%. For the year, the parks are up 4% (including 2 new acquisitions), 3% without the new parks. Guest spending is down 1%. June's attendance was up 5%

http://www.cedarfair.com/index2.cfm

Busch Parks - Harder to find at first glance since the Entertainment division is so small compared to the beer business, which apparently is booming. From the 2nd quarter earnings report 7/24.

Entertainment segment operating results for the first six months were up 5 percent compared to last year, excluding the impact of the SeaWorld Cleveland theme park.

In the Williamsburg area:
http://www.dailypress.com/news/yahoo/dp-33478sy0aug01.story

While consumer confidence and hot weather hurt some attractions, officials at Busch Gardens Williamsburg say they expect record numbers this summer at Water Country USA. John Gillespie, vice president for marketing at Busch Gardens and Water Country, said management does not release figures but officials expect the two sites to top last year's more than 3 million visitors.

"We're exactly where we expected to be," he said.

Gillespie said the parks introduced a "Bounce" ticket this year that offers a reduced price for both parks and allows people to hop from one park to the other during the day. He added that over the past two years, Busch Gardens has aggressively promoted itself as the top "short-haul" vacation spot in the mid-Atlantic region.

"We felt we could own that," he said. "It's worked very well."

Also from the San Diego area

"Attendance at the region's attractions and theme parks is down 9.2 percent in May, but marginally down 1.1 percent for the year."

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/020730/31/1xwqr.html

And from the article, San Diego is seeing strong numbers from their drive-in customer base which is helping the region recover at a rate better than the rest of the country. DL should have the same access to that drivin-in base, so if that resort isn't seeing good local numbers...

Still digging...

 

[raidermatt]

Thank you!

Disney isn't lieing when they say that they are affected more by the drop in international travel than these other parks. But as AV said, it doesn't look like that explains all of their problems...

I didn't realize Billy Boy had such a large stake in 6 Flag's...