Gold Coast Theme Park

Executive Summary This report is based on an environmental analysis for Gold Coast theme parks through task environment and broad environment aspects. Gold Coast theme parks had 4.9 million visitors and sometimes called the capital of Australia's Theme Parks. It includes Movie World, Wet'n'Wild Water World, Sea World, Dream World and White Water World, respectively. It is attractive because of its particular theme based design for the park attractions, rides and shows. Every year visitors coming to the park from different states locally and globally and families are the largest consumer group. In the analysis of Theme Park Industry in Gold Coast's task environment, Porter's five forces model is used which includes the threat of potential new entrants the bargaining power of suppliers and customers, the availability and comparability of substitutes and the competition among existing competitor. As a result, due to the high capital requirement and customer loyalty for existing operator, the threat of potential new entrants is low; large number of roller coaster manufacturers, and they depends on particular buyer (theme park) for a lot of their sales, the bargaining power of suppliers is low; many substitute products and lower price makes customer choose substitute instead of theme park, the power of substitute is high; the number of competitors and the industry growth make the power of competition is intense. In all, theme park industry in Gold Coast still remain profitability. In terms of the broad environment analysis, the economic force like financial crisis and the social cultural force like reduction of birth rates will both impact on the growth of the industry adversely. Also, once Carbon Tax is implemented, it will have a great impact on the number of visitors globally and nationally. However, the development of technology will have a positive impact on the growth of the theme park industry. It will accelerate the speed of routine tasks by automation, and create better interchange ability at work as well as make the customer service more consistent. Based on the environmental analysis, there are four main strategic issues mentioned in this report. They are economic forces, marketing strategy, social cultural forces and human resource strategy. It is suggested that reducing price and the cost and develop more creative attractions and rides will be helpful for increasing visitor numbers during the financial crisis or when inflation rates fluctuates and it is expensive for foreign consumers to come to Australia. It also advises that to broaden the market, advertising and promotional programmes can be used to attract people living in less developed countries to come. Moreover, as the immigrants increase nowadays, Australia is a cultural diversified nation. It suggests that there the park should be more cultural oriented and adopt different cultural elements. Furthermore, during the peak time, overseas students inter-ship is a good opportunity to enlarge the market and avoid labor shortage as well.

1.0 Introduction

The purpose of this report is to conduct an environmental analysis of tourism industry and how the analysis applies to theme parks in Gold Coast. In Australia, tourism is the largest industry and it generates $92 billion in spending every year (Tourism Australia, 2011). Due to the complicating factors are involved in tourism industry and theme parks, both task environment and broad environment are important to understand from different perspectives and how the factors affect to the theme parks. In this report, there is a brief description of the theme park industry in Gold Coast; the task environment will be applied by Porters five forces and broad environment will be analysed by hard copy. Moreover, at the last part of this report is given some strategic issues that are rose by the analysis to manage the theme parks on both short and long term companies plan.

2.0 Gold coast theme park industry Description

Theme park is one of the major tourists' attractions in Australiain for both international and domestic vistors. There is a record of 8.9 million visitors have been to 30 major theme parks and amusement parks in Australia (Leisure Tourism, 2002). Among of all theme parks in Australia, Gold Coast theme parks had 4.9 million visitors and sometimes called the capital of Australia's Theme Parks (Market Australia). There are five major theme parks operated by two companies in Gold Coast. One of them is Village Road Show United which operates Movie World, Wet'n'Wild Water World, Sea World and Sea World and is the largest theme parks operator in Australia which reached 96.0 millions revenue in year 2010 (Village Road Show United Annual report, 2010). The other is Ardent leisure which is an owner of Dream World and White Water World and have recorded the revenue of 98.6 millions (Ardent Leisure Annual report, 2010). Those theme parks are cooperating to attract the visitors by ultimate theme park pass that allow visiting 14 times in a year (Travel online.com). In other words, theme park pass is called annual pass too. Within Australia, gold coast theme parks attract visitors from different states and territories. The key consumer groups are families from Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria (Moore, 2002).The theme parks' core business is its particular theme based designs, rides, attractions and shows which make it stand out in this industry (Moore, 2002).

3.0 Task Environment of gold coast theme park industry

In this part, the task environment of Gold Coast theme parks will be analyzed by Porter's Five Forces model which included the power of customers, the power of supplier, the threat of potential new entrants, the availability and comparability of substitutes and the competition among existing competitor (Porter, 1985). Moreover, the profitability of Gold Coast theme park industry will be conducted depends on the analysis of five forces.

3.1 Threat of potential new entrants of theme park industry

The theme park industry in Gold Coast, the power of new entrants is low. For new entrants to enter into the theme park industry they may face the barriers which are capital requirements, brand identity and product differentiation (Harrison, J.S. & St. John, C.H., 2010).In the theme park industry, there is a large capital requirements as an entry barrier for new entrants, the operator need to purchase the equipment, adverting, and so on. Moreover, the new entrants need