Prior to opening, Macquarie Leisure Trust, owners of the Dreamworld-adjacent water park, suggested that the park's goal was to achieve 450,000 guests in its first year of operation. The $56 million investment saw a host of Australian-firsts debut at the water park, providing competition and variety for Warner Village Theme Parks' Wet'n'Wild Water World, a staple of the Gold Coast theme park world.

Wet'n'Wild Water World recently achieved acclaim for breaking the one million mark for its annual attendance. Announced in May 200, it was the first Australian water park to reach the figure, and gave the park the esteem of being among the most visited water parks in the world. The park's success can be at least partly attributed to an advertising blitz that came from the park in the wake of WhiteWater World's opening.

WhiteWater World meanwhile has achieved a figure of 490,000 guests for its first year, 9 per cent higher than initial estimates. To put into perspective, the figure is the same as Wet'n'Wild's attendance for 1996. The park's performance can largely be attributed to the success of leveraging the park off the existing Dreamworld theme park. 45 per cent of the water park's visitors purchased "World Pass" tickets that allow entry to both parks. The Dreamworld location is the only place in Australia where two parks -- known as 'gates' -- are offered in the same precinct.

Wet'n'Wild Water World is currently building a 'Sidewinder' water slide attraction, due open later this year. The park has been expanding rapidly to keep up with attendance, adding new major attractions every year since 2005.

An expansion of WhiteWater World has been submitted to the Gold Coast City Council for development approval. It is unknown at this stage if these plans will go ahead this year.

Expectations are that, pending a drier summer holiday period, the park will perform better over the next year.

Comments

Posted by skeetafly at 3:49pm, 25 Aug 08

The DA has been approved for WWW. The DA will have a time limit on when work must start. DA could last fo 10 years.

Posted by joz at 6:03am, 26 Aug 08

So there were only 250,000 odd people visit without buying a World Pass? I'd venture that most of those world passes were DW visitors upgrading to a duel pass rather than the other way around.

Is that not amazing how little of a draw it was as a stand alone attraction without Dreamworld next door? WWW is a good little water park on its own, and I've thought it would have attracted more on guests on its own power.

Still, good to see it going well otherwise, WWW IMHO is the best thing that has happened on Dreamworld property for a longtime.

Posted by Richard at 2:44pm, 26 Aug 08

I'd go further as to say it's the best thing to happen to Gold Coast parks in general in a long time. Wet'n'Wild is no longer the cash cow it once was. WVTP have to put some effort in to keep on top.

The net result is that now around 1.5 million people are paying to visit GC water parks each year. Two or three years ago we were looking at around half that figure.

You're right that as a standalone it's definitely not performed terribly well. Their overall strategy has been pretty weak in that the park they've built is clearly capable of a lot more, but piggybacking off DW was their strategy from the start. It's hardly the stuff entrepreneurial legends are made of, but they're making the money they expected to so I guess ML are happy.

Posted by cadboy at 3:51pm, 26 Aug 08

It is great to see WWW performing above the oringinal expectations

QUOTE

Wet'n'Wild is no longer the cash cow it once was. WVTP have to put some effort in to keep on top.

I completely agree Rich. Adding WWW turned up the heat resulting with WNW expanding its hirizons and overall guest expreince and visa versa to keep up. Competition is something that drives the industry and I have a feeling we are going to see more and more of it in the future. Dreamworld vs Movieworld and Wet'n'wild vs Whitwater World. In the end we the consumers benifit from the competition.

Posted by AlexB at 9:35am, 27 Aug 08

QUOTE (Richard @ Aug 26 2008, 02:44 PM)

but piggybacking off DW was their strategy from the start. It's hardly the stuff entrepreneurial legends are made of,

Interesting you should say that Rich.

I knew a guy once who rented a kiosk in a small backwater shopping mall in Melbourne, outside a Strathfield Car Radios store (melbourne equivalent). He sold Mobile Phones back in the day before pre-paid. People would come to the mall to visit the Strathfield store, and in passing him, would come and see what he had to offer.
He'd do the contract and process the connection, ask the customer to come back in 15 minutes, and then he'd drive to another retail shop, purchase the phone from them, come back - and customer happy
On his own, he had no chance - he didn't even stock the mobile phones, he only bought them as he sold them, but his success came from the fact that he was right outside the big strathfield juggernaut. People would not come to him if he was on some corner, but being right next to the big store, people detoured to him - "because he was there".
And it worked....


Speaking of Entrepreneurial Legends - the guy's name was John Ilhan AKA Crazy John.

Posted by joz at 11:32pm, 27 Aug 08

Yeah, but WWW has the product - its no WnW, but its a really good little water park which is again IMHO better then the 250,000 or so stand alone visitors it got. It kind of begs the question of was it built as a stand alone attraction or as something to increase the per-cap spending of DW guests?