Perception of Non-visitors
McClung [3] underscored that age, children in household and income are the key factors for people not to come. He found that the park visitors tend to be younger, with children under 18 living at home, and earning more than non-visitors.
Apart from the constraint of lodging and crowded environment McClung [3]; Johns and Gyimothy [5]; Johns and Gyimothy [6] found that the park catered well for children’s needs, but left adults with a feeling that they were “babysitting”. It is also a reason from the non-visitors.
Re-visit Propensity
The success of a business is not only attracting the new visitors, but also retaining the visited guests. Cheng, et al. [3] identified that brand loyalty development could strengthen the visitor loyalty and increase the re-visit propensity. A corporate branding enables theme parks to create a good image, increase security, trust and recognition to attract visitors more efficiently. The theme park should formulate relevant promotion measures to align the image. Bakir and Baxter [1] reported that repeat visitation usually occurs when the visitors have both enjoyed the experience or when something new and exciting is offered, such as annual pass discount and special events.
Findings
According to the various groups of respondents, the major motivation for visiting theme parks include the followings. First and foremost, it is a good option to get thrill, excited and entertained. It is important to note that the three aforesaid motivations have critical difference. To get thrill as a motivation seems to appeal more to the younger adults and teens. Roller coasters, wet rides and other motion-based rides are the key types of attractions that they will queue up for. Their more matured counterparts and family group demonstrated a very different point of view. Although they also indicated positive value of thrill rides to a theme park, they have a high tendency to avoid participating. It is important to note that the environment rather than the ride can deliver the satisfaction of thrill to guests as well. This might be confused and correlated with another attribute, immersion.
It has been argued that bonding with family members and friends is another key attributes for park attendance. Especially among the local respondents, theme park attending is one of the good way to do some activities with their family, especially the kids. The availability of activities that the parents and do with their children, adults with their friends is important.
Majority of the family agreed that visiting which theme park is decided by the children and this is in line with the major body of the literature, for example, Johns and Gyimothy [5]; Johns and Gyimothy [6]; Bakir and Baxter [1]. Therefore, it could desirable to point towards children as the main target when designing the marketing strategies. When probing deeper into the respondents’’ decision process, however, there are a major observation that deserve more attentions. First, those family with younger kids ages 3 to 6 are key sources of business to many theme parks. These younger kids’ influence and participation to the purchase decision could be pseudo. It is very often that the parents are extending their influences and information to arouse the interest and preference of the kids. It is also worth attention that parents tend to make use of theme park holidays as incentive to motivate kids or rewards for their good works. According to a group of Mainland Chinese respondents, park attending can be regarded as a mode to ‘showing off’ to friends and relatives. Taking all these into consideration, the
influence of parents and their part to play in the decision concerned should not be under estimated.
It has been revealed that most of the current theme parks rarely being designed and built for a balanced satisfaction of children and their parents. Although it has been argued that the main purpose for family visitation is to satisfy the children, parents somehow demonstrated their latent needs of being “entertained” as well.
Given the field work take place in Hong Kong and Guangdong province, weather is a more concern that respondents mentioned. The “open sky” outdoor approach of theme park became an obstacle to visitation. According to them, summer in Southern China is too hot, too humid to be outdoor. With the frequent thunder storm and typhoon hitting the territory, visitation will definitely be affected.
The availability of franchises is yet another important motives for visitation. Respondents in general agreed that likability of franchises (characters) is part of their consideration. For this reason, theme parks such as Disneyland and Universal studio are inherited with strengthen in both communication and satisfaction of visitation.
Animal and nature encounter is another perceived satisfaction of theme parks. Zoological park, however, are argued to be less preferred. The safari type would be a more desirable engagement. Yet, it is no longer an element that would create extra mileage to move the needle.
Brand building is very important in the theme park. According to the Cheng, et al. [3], the brand has become the main factor affecting visitors’ selection of the theme parks in China. The well-known theme park brands are more attractive to the visitors than new creation. Partially, it is contributed by the quality assurance. It also has something to do with the perceived risk of visitation. According to the respondents, risk is associated with both “value of money” and “safety”.
Travel distance to the park from home is not too much a concern to the group of respondents. They contended that they will normal include that as one of the element on their travel itinerary. As long as there is ample transit service avail, it is not too serious a concern. If the location of the park is far from the city area, they would consider to stay on premises for an overnight. Room rate will then be a concern. They also expressed their concern of lacking of night time activities and catering facilitates.
Regarding the augmented products of theme parks, respondents generally have an impression that prices are over-charged but quality of sub-standard. They can accept this as a common phenomenon but bearing an impact on their length of stay.
With regard to their purchase behaviours, various groups indicated a multiple channel model which included traditional travel agents, marquee and on-line portal. They do not have a strong attachment on any particular mode of distribution. Price and promotion are more important elements for draw their attention and influence their choices.
In terms of sources of information, respondents rely most