Competition prepares for full gear as WhiteWater World shapes up

Competition at the Gold Coast theme parks is firing up and the Gold Coast's newest park, Dreamworld's separate WhiteWater World water park, is only fueling the fire as it prepares to go head-to-head with Wet'n'Wild Water World (pictured).

It comes as little surprise that as Macquarie prepares their foray into the wet - and wild - world of water parks, the first new park on the Gold Coast in some 15 years, since Warner Bros. Movie World opened in 1991.

WhiteWater World, the new theme park worth close to $60 million,  boasts an impressive collection of slides and attractions, most of which are completely unseen in Australia.

Not one to take this sitting down, Warner Village Theme Parks, operators of Wet'n'Wild Water World have hit back in their own way. A $20 million revamp and expansion of the park was well underway when WhiteWater World was announced and the fruits of this can now be seen with H2O Zone, a collection of some of the tallest and fastest water slide in Australia including the month-old Tornado, the first of its kind in Australia, a slide which was quickly become the most popular slide at water parks across the globe. WhiteWater World too are installing their own version of the Tornado.

With WhiteWater World set to cut into Wet'n'Wild's previous stronghold over the profitable water park market in south-east Queensland, Warner Village are busy preparing the next step in the battle for guests - ticketing wars.

The World Pass will let guests visit Dreamworld and WhiteWater World on a single ticket, making this an attractive alternative to WVTP's 3 Park Super Pass, especially for time-poor tourists who see no need for a 14 day ticket.

The response from WVTP is the introduction of two new multi-day passes that look set to make ground on the World Pass through Wet'n'Wild's established brandname. The Summer Pass is a two-park, three-day ticket while the Fun Pass is a thee-park, five-day ticket. The 3 Park Super Pass has been shortened to Super Pass.

Studies of the Orlando theme park environment - one which brings close to 70 million guests through its 9 theme parks which are operated by three different companies - have shown that single-day ticket prices can continue to go up and not affect sales and thus make price wars unfavourable. Price wars however, the study went on to demonstrate, are vital to the sales of multi-day and multi-park options. These tickets are likely be very competitively priced, a bonus to theme park goers and interstate tourists in particular whom the multi-day passes are geared at.

The final front that Wet'n'Wild are fighting WhiteWater World is through branding. The Wet'n'Wild logo in places is now dropping the "Water World" text in place for "Biggest & Best", highlighting one of the key advantages Wet'n'Wild will have over WhiteWater World - its size and number of attractions.

WhiteWater World is opening December of this year directly adjacent to Dreamworld. The park expects to attract a conservative 450,000 guests per year, a fraction of what Wet'n'Wild Water World currently attracts each year.