Situational Analysis of Australian Theme Park Industry and Creative Strategy to Overcome Potential Issues

This report provides a situational analysis of the Australian theme park industry, impact of the accident on Dream World, creative strategy to overcome potential issues and IMC planning. It includes industry growth rate, revenue, market trends, analysis of competition, marketing mix, current brand strategy, media strategy and IMC plan.

Running head: MARKETING & MANAGEMENT
Marketing & Management
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Introduction
The tourism industry is considered to be a vital industry in Australia because of its
contribution to the Australian economy. In the financial year 2017/2018, tourism represented
almost 4.5 percent of the GDP of the nation. The total amount of contribution of tourism to the
national economy in the year 2017 is 53.2 billion Australian dollar. Theme parks or amusement
parks are considered to be a major part of the mentioned industry. In this report, situational
analysis of the Australian theme park industry, impact of the accident on dream world, a popular
theme park located at Gold Coast, creative strategy to overcome the potential issues and IMC
planning has been performed.
Situational analysis
In this paragraph, situation analysis of the theme park industry as well as that of the
Dream word Gold Coast has been performed.
Industry Analysis
Industry growth rate in the past five years

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2014 2015 2016 2017 2018
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
Visitor Count (billion)
Visitor Count (billion)
Graph 1: Industry growth rate in the past five years
Source (Jung, Chung & Leue, 2015)
With the enhancement in technology, the amusement park industry has shown commendable
growth. Due to enhanced rate of accidents in the year 2014, the visitors growth rate had abruptly
fell in the year 2015. However, the industry has evidenced gradual growth since 2016.
Revenue in the past five years

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2014 2015 2016 2017 2018
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
Revenue
Revenue
Graph 2: Revenue in the past 5 years
Source (Birenboim et al. 2013)
Market trends
The major determinants of the market trends of the theme park industry depends on
trends in consumer lifestyle, enhancing household spending, pneumatics and hydraulics that add
hi-tech thrills to the theme park industry. Moreover the growing baby boomer population along
with kids is the target consumers for the theme parks. Usage of simulation, virtual reality and
augmented realities are the current trends in the mentioned industry.
Impact of the accident on Dream World Gold Coast
In the year 2016, in Dream World, one of the most popular theme parks of Australia, four
people died in an accident that occurred when a raft on a dream world ride flipped. According to
researchers, the reason behind this is the lack of safety measure and reluctance of the theme park
management (Dong & Siu, 2013). This incident has imposed high impact on its revenue.

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 Analysis of competition:
The revenue of the mentioned theme park has got reduced severally due to lack of visitors
after the occurrence of the accident. This fact was also imposing adverse impact on its market
capitalization. The major competitors of Dreamworld in Australia are Adventure Park Geelong
and adventure world. Before the occurrence of the accident, the position of the mentioned
themepark in the position ing map was much favourable compared to its competitors.
High market Capitalization
Low Revenue High Revenue
Low Market Capital
Red: Adventure Park Geelong
Yellow: Adventure World
Blue: Dream World

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Marketing mix
Place: In spite of the fact that Gold coast is a popular tourist attraction, the number of visitors at
Dream world had got reduced considerable after the accident. While local visitors were rare,
international visitors often visited the place.
Price: In order to attract more visitors in the mentioned theme parks, the management of the
theme park imposed several discounts and free ride in order to retain the consumer loyalty.
Promotion: negative promotion of the theme park after the occurrence of the accident had
imposed high impact on its yearly revenue (Ma et al., 2013).
 Current brand strategy :
In order to regain its consumer base and loyalty, the company has launched a
fresh marketing campaign six months after the tragic Thunder River Rapids ride accident,
focusing on the overall theme park experience as opposed to the BIG 9 thrill rides.
Creative strategy
In order to develop an effective creative strategy, the company has recruited Grey Sydney
as its new creative agency (Jin, Lee & Lee, 2015). The chief focus of the company is still driving
local, national and international visitors to their worlds of entertainment. The target audience
profile includes kids or elderly citizens. The current creative strategy of the organization
includes provision the visitors with innovative creative entertainment which will be supported by
seamless data and media analysis.
A virtual reality roller costar has been designed in order to attract both local and global
citizens.

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Brand attribute: one of the major brand attribute of Dreamworld includes really kowing
their audience and the ability to pivot quickly.
Brand Benefit: Being one of the most popular theme park brand, brand popularity can be
considerd as the major benefit of the Dream World.
Media strategy
IMC plan
Dream world has appointed Match Media to innovate to innovate the media space.
Media Objective: The chief objective of Match media is to regain the consumer base of the
popular theme park by enhancing the awareness of the people about its new innovate rides and
health and safety measures (Milman & Dickson, 2014).
Media strategy:

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Considering the fact that the target consumers of the mentioned company include kids
and elderly citizens, an integrated marketing communication approach will be used by the
company (Vogel, 2014).
Major selling idea:
Since virtual reality, simulation and augmented reality are the major trends incorporating
them in the theme park and offering the consumer these experiences at a lower price than its
consumer is its major selling idea.
Media Plan:
Apart from offline promotion through events and campaigns, the chief promotion to
attract national and international consumers will be done through popular social media platforms
like Facebook an Instagram (Brown, Kappes & Marks, 2013). The reason behind this is the cost
effectiveness of the platforms and the fact that it will allow the management to directly
communicate with the consumers and understand their specific needs.
Conclusion
Finally, it can be concluded that the dream world theme park will be able to regain its
consumer base by following the strategies. However, the management should be more careful
about the safety of the visitor so that no further harm on its reputation takes place.

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Reference List
Birenboim, A., Anton-Clavé, S., Russo, A. P., & Shoval, N. (2013). Temporal activity patterns
of theme park visitors. Tourism Geographies, 15(4), 601-619.
Brown, A., Kappes, J., & Marks, J. (2013). Mitigating theme park crowding with incentives and
information on mobile devices. Journal of Travel Research, 52(4), 426-436.
Dong, P., & Siu, N. Y. M. (2013). Servicescape elements, customer predispositions and service
experience: The case of theme park visitors. Tourism Management, 36, 541-551.
Jin, N., Lee, S., & Lee, H. (2015). The effect of experience quality on perceived value,
satisfaction, image and behavioral intention of water park patrons: New versus repeat
visitors. International Journal of Tourism Research, 17(1), 82-95.
Jung, T., Chung, N., & Leue, M. C. (2015). The determinants of recommendations to use
augmented reality technologies: The case of a Korean theme park. Tourism
management, 49, 75-86.
Ma, J., Gao, J., Scott, N., & Ding, P. (2013). Customer delight from theme park experiences: The
antecedents of delight based on cognitive appraisal theory. Annals of Tourism
Research, 42, 359-381.
Milman, A., & Dickson, D. (2014). Employment characteristics and retention predictors among
hourly employees in large US theme parks and attractions. International Journal of
Contemporary Hospitality Management, 26(3), 447-469.
Vogel, H. L. (2014). Entertainment industry economics: A guide for financial analysis.
Cambridge University Press.