Best Practices for Opening and Operating a New Water Park

At IAAPA Expo Asia, attendees learned about opening and operating water parks in an EDUSession led by operators from Thailand, Malaysia, and Macau. General Manager of Leisure & Hospitality at Gamuda Land’s SplashMania, Sanjay Nadarajah, shared his experience with planning and building the park:.

Be Right Sized for the Market

From the start, determine what to build, the location, the size of the park, and the size of investment. This is done by determining what market the park will cater to and then making key decisions early about what the park’s offerings or attractions will be. This involves a decision on the level of adventure-based (themed) attractions or more thrill-based offerings that will be added.

Hire Strong Managers

While it is important to find vendors for attractions, an operator must bear in mind that attraction vendors are not able to advise on the needs of the park from a total operational perspective. It is important to hire management who can advise on what facilities are needed to support the attractions and on what scale. Examples include operational, back-of-house buildings to front of house guest service buildings like restrooms.

Establish Standards

The park will need to hire staff, develop procurement standards, and prepare policies early. This will help in securing operational supplies and developing standard operating procedures (SOP). “As a water park of our size with 27 slides, we have about 800 SOP documents,” says Nadarajah.

Create your Brand

The branding and innovation phase involves building a brand guide. “If you don’t have an IP (intellectual property), you struggle a little, but it’s worth it because you control the narrative from A to Z,” says Nadarajah. This pertains to designing mascots, park jingles, logos, mission and vision, and even securing social media handles. Other considerations include guest pricing structure and seeking partnerships in the local community.

Establish Levels of Tech

Finally, in the construction and pre-opening phase of a water park’s development, management needs to decide how “forward digital” and “forward thinking” the park will be. Guests expect technology to be available that helps the guest avoid queuing for ticketing and entry. Sustainability is also important to guests now and SplashMania is proud of the fact that single-use plastics are not utilized.