January 6, 2010

Building an Indoor Waterpark

It made sense I thought!

Now that I built it how do I fill it?

Two simple statements with very complex responses when it comes to building an Indoor Water Park Resort or adding a Water Park to your existing hotel.  The first hurdle is that often these questions are asked in this order when in reality they should be reversed.

Does a hotel make sense?  When choosing a location the first question that must be answered is does just a hotel make sense.  The, if you build it they will come, mentality never works, especially for a water park resort!  Misconception number one is, you can not build a hotel for one audience and survive.  You need to evaluate who your weekday clientele will be and how you will attract them.  Then you need to determine if there is demand in the market for weekend family leisure travel.  Secondly, limited service does not work!  Whether franchised or independent, the property needs to be full service.  All of these questions are of major significance but we will save them for another article.  So, we assume you have built the right product in the right location and now you need to fill it.   Let’s examine how to find and balance two significantly different audiences with vastly different demands and expectations.

Sales managers will be selling; weekday corporate, meetings, conferences and transient.  The marketing approach is such that the property should be sold as a full service with many amenities.  You are not just a water park you are a resort and the client can pick and choose the amenities or services they want to take part in.  Sell the fact that corporate guests can bring their families.  Whether the guest is a self pay or staying at his companies expense, he is staying so why not suggest he brings his family along for a little fun and quality time together that we all are seeking and find so little of.  A critical issue for corporate travelers and groups goes all the way back to the design phase, it is imperative that the bathing suits and the business suits mix as little as possible and only when the business guest chooses to cross over to the adventuresome entertainment side of the resort.  Get these things right and you will have a very successful weekday hotel. 

Now you have the weekdays filling with your corporate guests so we need to find the mini-van/SUV crowd to fill the weekends and traditionally low corporate demand periods such as holidays and summer.  To do this we use targeted channel marketing to appeal to the senses of the following audiences.  The mom makes the decision to go but only after the kids convince her so, you have to catch the attention of the kids, sell the mom and then have mom convince dad to go.  Once they’re at your property, the order reverses.  You have to keep dad’s attention and make sure he is entertained with adult games in the arcade, cold beverages and a variety of sports games on large screen TV’s all in a lounge that is accessible to the water park so he is still part of the weekend.  Mom needs to feel her family is safe so then she can find a quiet spot to read a book or have some down time with her girlfriends who she convinced to bring their families along for the weekend to.  Finally the kids need to have enough attractions to be entertained and some cash from dad to spend in the arcade helps also. 

Accomplish these things successfully and you will have extremely loyal guests who will tell their friends and business associates and be back several times a year for years to come.  Get any one of the requirements for each
family member wrong and no matter how much fun the rest of the family had, they will never be back.  Take dad for example, if he is not entertained and is stressed out, even if mom had a great time and the kids were blown away with your Super Water Coaster X271 Speed Racer (if anyone uses that name I get royalties) they will not be back because no one wants to spend another miserable weekend with dad when he is not happy and he had to pay the bill.