thorpe pask marketing

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Marketing coursework task 1

Thorpe Park.

      Thorpe Park is an amusement park or a theme park located in Surrey, United Kingdom. It was constructed in the year of 1979 on the site of a gravel pit which was eventually flooded with the intention of creating a water based theme for the park. The park's first large roller coaster, Colossus, was added in 2002. However, in 2007 Tussauds was bought out by Merlin Entertainments, which now operates the park on a lease from Nick Leslau. Thorpe Park is situated on what was a quarry in Staines, up until the late 1970s. Former owners Ready Mix Concrete filled the site with water after the quarry's closure, with the intent to start a leisure park. On May 24, 1979, Thorpe Park was officially opened by Louis Mountbatten who lent his name to the Mountbatten Pavilion, a large domed structure located at the entrance to the park. At this early stage in the park's history, the complex consisted of educational exhibitions such as Model World, a collection of famous structures from around the world built in 1:36 scale, with the Mountbatten Pavilion housing a standing aircraft display. In 1998, the park was bought by The Tussauds Group, who at the time also owned Chessington World of Adventures, the sister attraction of Thorpe Park. As a result of the close proximity of the two parks, Tussauds decided to cater for two different markets, with Chessington being transformed into a family park. Furthermore, our lake View is our award winning, contemporary venue within the Park. Since opening in spring 2006 it has proved a popular choice for 100 companies that include o2, Nokia, BT, Price Waterhouse Cooper and Samsung. Lake View would be ideal for your next conference, corporate family fun day, party, dinner dance, party, or awards ceremony. Thorpe Park is a wonderful place in which to mix with pleasure. If you are looking for a venue that offers you something truly unique for between 50 - 7,000 guests, this is it.

      As a business Thorpe Park’s main objective is to make a profit against its competitors such as Alton Towers, Chessington World of Adventures, etc. In a addition, Thorpe Park hopes to use new rides very effectively in terms of customers and cost. Firstly according to visitors, mixed type of customers will come to Thorpe Park, in other words, anti-social customers. These people can be tourists coming from a different town, city, count etc, new residents, teenagers, and children, etc. However, children and teenagers don’t have to come independently with their families; this could either be a school trip for them. Secondly according to price, Thorpe Park hopes to use their new rides as a profit for them and to increase visitors which leads the company generating more money for them selves. In order to do this they advertise their new rides on posters, TV adverts, radio adverts, etc. Thorpe Park’s other objective is to improve customer satisfaction. For example Thorpe Park has created the fasttrack tickets. This ticket is the is the current name for a priority queuing system in place at Thorpe Park as well as other Merlin parks. The system used to be based on the idea of assigning guests a time to ride a particular attraction and allowing them to skip the queue. Furthermore, this based on the "4Play" ticket which was introduced in 2004 as an adjunct to the ticket machine issued Fastrack tickets. The ticket allowed guests to pay £4 and get a non time limited ticket for one Fastrack ride on Colossus, Nemesis Inferno, Tidal Wave and Logger's Leap. The range of rides that Fastrack is offered on has since been extended. In 2006 and 2007, tickets are usually purchased in a package of four rides (although there is an option to buy an individual ticket for one ride on any Fastrack participating ride except Stealth). The current packages available are:

  • Adrenalin - one Fastrack ride on Rush, Slammer, Samurai, Vortex
  • Extreme - one Fastrack ride on Colossus, Nemesis Inferno, X:\No Way Out and then either Tidal Wave or Loggers Leap
  • Stealth Only
  • Ultimate - a wristband which allows unlimited Fastrack access to Fastrack rides (Colossus, Stealth, Nemesis Inferno, X:\No Way Out, Tidal Wave, Logger's Leap, Flying Fish, Rush, Slammer, Samurai, Vortex) all day.
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      Considering on competition both parks including Chessington World of Adventure unsurprisingly attract most of their visitors from the south of England as the majority of people are unwilling to spend more than two hours travelling to a site. The need to appeal to a wider audience and become more of a national brand is very much at the forefront of the marketing strategy at the two parks. Up until now, theme parks have been able to survive on that one to two hour catchment area alone, but it is clear that times are changing. There are the ...

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