With the opening of the fifth phase of the Beijing Happy Valley project, more new projects will be announced, including the sixth phase of the project in 2019-2021, and the seventh phase of the project in 2022-2024. Compared with the past, the update of the Beijing Happy Valley project has been significantly accelerated. Behind the accelerated update is the pressure of Beijing Happy Valley’s similar rides and the growth of tourists. In 2021, Beijing Universal Studios will open soon, and there is not much time left for Beijing Happy Valley.
Beijing Happy Valley speeds up its update, and faced the trouble of declining tourist numbers
On June 28, the fifth phase of Beijing Happy Valley project “Shangri-La” will be officially put into operation, only one and a half years after the construction was announced at the beginning of last year. Combing the development trajectory, it is not difficult to find that the update frequency of Beijing Happy Valley is accelerating in recent years.
In 2006, Beijing Happy Valley was born in the barrenness of the fourth ring road in the southeast of the capital. This is also a proud history of its fortune. In the first month of its opening, the number of visitors to Beijing Happy Valley exceeded 300,000, and the highest number of tourists in a single day reached 20,000, which was very popular for a while. Xiao Yang, a native of Beijing, still remembers that he went to Beijing Happy Valley for the first time with the school organization in 2008. In order to ride a roller coaster, he waited in line for a full four hours.
However, today’s Beijing Happy Valley is facing the trouble of declining tourist volume. According to the bond tracking and rating report of OCT A, from 2016 to 2017, Beijing Happy Valley received 3.65 million and 3.4163 million tourists respectively, down 2.4% and 6.4% respectively. 322 million yuan per year.
Corresponding to it is the update speed of Beijing Happy Valley. Since its opening in 2006, Beijing Happy Valley has maintained the speed of opening a new project every four years until 2018. After two consecutive years of decline in the number of tourists, Beijing Happy Valley in 2018 not only launched the fourth project Dessert Kingdom in April, but also announced the upgrade and renovation of the fifth project Shangri-La at the beginning of the year.
In 2019, Shangri-La, the fifth phase of Beijing Happy Valley, opened as scheduled. At the press conference, Beijing Happy Valley once again revealed the timetable of new projects, including six projects from 2019-2021 and seven projects from 2022-2024, all of which take two years as a cycle. Compared with the past, the update of the Beijing Happy Valley project has been significantly accelerated.
The amusement items are the same, a park has 7 roller coasters
Judging from the results, the opening of new projects has indeed boosted the passenger flow of Beijing Happy Valley. According to officials, the number of visitors to Beijing Happy Valley increased by 20% in 2018. Based on the 2017 data in the rating report, the number of tourists to Beijing Happy Valley reached about 4.1 million in 2018. A staff member of Beijing Happy Valley told the Beijing News reporter that the number of visitors to Beijing Happy Valley last year was 4 million.
In 2019, the goal set by Beijing Happy Valley is to receive 5 million tourists, which also means that the growth rate of tourists must reach at least 22%. The 20% growth rate of Beijing Happy Valley in 2018 is the highest since its opening 12 years ago, and it is obviously more challenging to maintain or even surpass it.
Chen Shaofeng, deputy dean of Peking University’s Cultural Industry Research Institute, said that local theme parks are less sustainable, and the number of visitors is usually three years. After three years, the growth rate is prone to slow down or even drop sharply. “Constant construction and constant innovation” is the eternal theme of theme parks. The launch of new projects has a considerable driving effect on the visitor flow of theme parks. The effect can be seen from the number of tourists in Beijing Happy Valley in 2018. Therefore, accelerating updates has become an important way for Beijing Happy Valley to “attract customers”.
Specific to the setting of amusement projects, it is not difficult to find that Beijing Happy Valley tries to drive tourists with projects that highlight the sense of experience, but the problem of “similarity” also arises. After the opening of the fifth phase of the project, the roller coaster of Beijing Happy Valley has reached There are as many as seven, and it is said that the number has become the first in Asia. But do tourists really need so many roller coasters?
Regarding this issue, Zhao Xiaobing, the general manager of Beijing Happy Valley, told the Beijing News reporter that Beijing Happy Valley hopes to enhance the experience of tourists, and the roller coaster is the “main menu” of Beijing Happy Valley’s amusement methods, and the tourists who come here mainly choose roller coasters .
In the eyes of industry insiders, 7 roller coasters are not a normal number for theme parks. “Generally speaking, a theme park should not have so many roller coasters, no more than three.” Lin Huanjie, president of the China Theme Park Research Institute, said. The reason why the Beijing Happy Valley project is similar is still subject to IP. “Beijing Happy Valley is still affected by the lack of IP, and it is difficult to design other innovative amusement projects based on IP.” Chen Shaofeng said.
Trend: “Fighting” Universal Studios, making entertainment more exciting
With the opening date of Beijing Universal Studios officially confirmed as 2021, the North China theme park market has entered a countdown, and the outside world is concerned about the survival of local theme parks in Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei. Although there will be similar problems, a large number of “experiential” project settings of roller coasters may also indicate from another aspect that Beijing Happy Valley wants to blaze a path of “coexistence” with Universal Studios.
Liu Simin, a tourism expert, told a reporter from the Beijing News that the current update speed of Beijing Happy Valley every two years may not be fast enough. However, due to the construction cycle of theme park projects, the current speed of Beijing Happy Valley is also considered to be within the normal range. Zhao Xiaobing said that the large-scale project cycle of Beijing Happy Valley is usually three years, one year of planning and two years of ordering. Although OCT has its own amusement machine manufacturing company, large-scale equipment such as roller coasters still need to be imported.
Industry insiders revealed that after the opening of Shanghai Disneyland, the number of visitors to Shanghai Happy Valley dropped rapidly. Statistics show that when Shanghai Disneyland opened in 2016, the number of visitors to Shanghai Happy Valley dropped by 50,000 in the same year. In 2017, although the number of visitors to Shanghai Happy Valley rose to 3 million, the ticket revenue remained the same as in 2016, at 340 million yuan.
Overseas Chinese Town A has not released the number of visitors to Shanghai Happy Valley in 2018, but it may be possible to see the clue from the accommodation data of Shanghai Happy Valley Jiatu Hotel supporting Shanghai Happy Valley. The hotel opened in July 2018, with an occupancy rate of only 17.24%; Wuhan Maya Beach Hotel, which is adjacent to Wuhan Happy Valley, had an occupancy rate of 66.1%.
Facing the high pressure of Universal Studios, Beijing Happy Valley is bound to seek a new direction of development. “Beijing Happy Valley wants to differentiate itself from Universal Studios in the future.” Lin Huanjie said, “Universal Studios uses their own or authorized film and television IP as the entertainment model of their theme parks. Teenage tourists may prefer more stimulating projects, so Happy Valley sets up a variety of stimulating projects to form a difference from Universal Studios, but it is still not certain whether the strategy is effective.”
On the other hand, it is difficult to describe the linkage effect between Beijing Happy Valley and Tianjin Happy Valley as a “win-win”. Excluding Chongqing Happy Valley, which opened in July 2017, Tianjin Happy Valley’s ticket revenue was always the lowest among all the opened Happy Valleys from 2014 to 2017, and it was also the one with the least number of tourists.
“Happy Valley is a standardized entertainment project. No matter which city it is in, it is built according to a standardized model, so the basic model of Tianjin and Beijing Happy Valley is similar, even if Tianjin is the main water park.” Lin Huanjie said, “plus The Happy Valley in Beijing and Tianjin are located in two cities, and those who come to Tianjin Happy Valley do not necessarily come to Beijing, and vice versa, in fact, there is no linkage.”
Source: Beijing News
