The hotel industry is constantly evolving. If anything, the 2008 crisis has accelerated this evolution to the point where a clean room and good food is no longer enough for the guest, as consumers in all markets reevaluated their utility per dollar spent. Now, more than ever, tourists are looking to be engulfed in a unique and memorable experience catered to a specific taste. This is the blunder of the boutique hotel: to combine the highest standards of quality and service with an eclectic taste and personality to deliver a once-in-a-lifetime experience to the guest that will make him want to return. Conversely, the guest has its own taste, with its own desires, looking for a reason to go back and visit the same hotel. Why not apply this philosophy to theme parks, and Six Flags especially?
Before I get into specifics, I want to establish a few caveats. First, the most important measure for a place like Six Flags is the size of its returning guests pool. In order for a theme park to stay on the map, it must give a reason for its customers to return. This leads me to my next point: the type of people who would consistently return to theme parks are theme-park goers, which come in many forms including teenagers, young families and, if you're as lucky as I am, the Annual AP Physics field trip to Six Flags (thank you, progressive education). In order to insure that you capture returning guests, like in the boutique hotel philosophy, you need to give your guests a memorable experience that extends beyond a looping roller coaster or a picture with Bugs Bunny (as awesome as that sounds).
Enter Six Flags. I've been to Great Adventure twice, and I have to say that the second time was for my class field trip, so I don't think that counts as me wanting to go. The reason for this is because while the rides are fun, is it really worth the 90 minute drive and the hour wait to ride Nitro for the fourth time? Obviously not, and frankly, this is really all that Six flags has going for it. Disney World, on the other hand, actually used all of its brands to create not just one, but three different theme parks (Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom, and Epcot) in one resort, connected by a surprisingly practical monorail system and a collection of hotels in varying degrees of size and luxury.
Granted, Six Flags has neither the brands nor the real estate to create such a world. But that is because it has instead opened a number of smaller mediocre one-day parks in random locations around the country. So what should it do? Close the bottom performing parks, salvage as much as it can (old roller-coaster components and the like), and sell the rest along with the land. This will raise a lot of cash. Then, it should acquire a collection of licenses so that it can create a theme park with an actual theme. I, for one, think it would be awesome to be able to go to a live-action Quahog or Springfield, but I digress.
Step 2: invest in a massive plot of land that is in or near a tourist and/or theme-park hotspot, like Orlando or Southern California. The third step would be to take the Disney World model, which has already been applied successfully by Universal Orlando, and build a world, not a park, that its guests will want to go back to. The way I see it, the only other option for Six Flags is to put itself up for sale and hope it gets bought out by a company that will do something with the company, because the last thing it needs is to open up another park in the middle of nowhere.
Before I get into specifics, I want to establish a few caveats. First, the most important measure for a place like Six Flags is the size of its returning guests pool. In order for a theme park to stay on the map, it must give a reason for its customers to return. This leads me to my next point: the type of people who would consistently return to theme parks are theme-park goers, which come in many forms including teenagers, young families and, if you're as lucky as I am, the Annual AP Physics field trip to Six Flags (thank you, progressive education). In order to insure that you capture returning guests, like in the boutique hotel philosophy, you need to give your guests a memorable experience that extends beyond a looping roller coaster or a picture with Bugs Bunny (as awesome as that sounds).
Enter Six Flags. I've been to Great Adventure twice, and I have to say that the second time was for my class field trip, so I don't think that counts as me wanting to go. The reason for this is because while the rides are fun, is it really worth the 90 minute drive and the hour wait to ride Nitro for the fourth time? Obviously not, and frankly, this is really all that Six flags has going for it. Disney World, on the other hand, actually used all of its brands to create not just one, but three different theme parks (Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom, and Epcot) in one resort, connected by a surprisingly practical monorail system and a collection of hotels in varying degrees of size and luxury.
Granted, Six Flags has neither the brands nor the real estate to create such a world. But that is because it has instead opened a number of smaller mediocre one-day parks in random locations around the country. So what should it do? Close the bottom performing parks, salvage as much as it can (old roller-coaster components and the like), and sell the rest along with the land. This will raise a lot of cash. Then, it should acquire a collection of licenses so that it can create a theme park with an actual theme. I, for one, think it would be awesome to be able to go to a live-action Quahog or Springfield, but I digress.
Step 2: invest in a massive plot of land that is in or near a tourist and/or theme-park hotspot, like Orlando or Southern California. The third step would be to take the Disney World model, which has already been applied successfully by Universal Orlando, and build a world, not a park, that its guests will want to go back to. The way I see it, the only other option for Six Flags is to put itself up for sale and hope it gets bought out by a company that will do something with the company, because the last thing it needs is to open up another park in the middle of nowhere.
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