Coast, Australian Outback Spectacular, Paradise Country, Village Roadshow Studios, Sea World Resort & Water Park and Sea World Helicopters. Each of these major attractions and businesses is synonymous with superior quality and exhilarating experiences for our customers. Renowned as the ‘Theme Park Capital of Australia’, the Gold Coast is Australia’s sixth largest city and has the largest concentration of themed attractions in the southern hemisphere. It attracts millions of visitors each year and features a sub-tropical climate, reliable infrastructure and a strong local population with high visitor numbers, which is the perfect environment for theme park businesses to thrive in. 

Solid VIP ticket sales underpinned attendances throughout the year and kept pace with last year’s record attendance levels. Recent focus has also been placed on a new media/creative campaign to present the Company’s Gold Coast Parks with a more magical look and with a greater emphasis on ‘escapism’. The benefits of this new campaign have already been seen in VRTP’s early bookings and will play an important role in the new season’s ticket pricing and packaging plans. 

Management of costs through a number of initiatives has also helped the Gold Coast Theme Parks division control operating cost pressures from increases in wage rates, workers compensation and utility costs, and the additional media costs associated with the ‘Theme Park Capital’ marketing program in the year to June 2014. It is anticipated that the benefits of this marketing expenditure will flow through to the Company’s Gold Coast parks in future years. 

The launch during the year of the new Carnivale event at Warner Bros. Movie World proved to be very popular and will now be an exciting annual inclusion to the already successful ‘Special Events’ line-up each year including the ever popular family-focussed White Christmas and teen/young adult oriented Halloween Fright Nights events. Warner Bros. Movie World remains a key anchor to the Gold Coast parks with the continued success of recent highly popular attractions including the Green Lantern, the Batman: Arkham Asylum, Superman Escape and the Justice League: Alien Invasion rides. In addition, to cater to young family groups, Warner Bros. Movie World has just opened in September 2014 the Junior Driving School attraction which has proved to be an instant hit with younger patrons, their parents and grandparents. 

The enthusiastic reception to the exhilarating new hybrid steel/water coaster ride, Storm Coaster, the popularity of Sea World’s polar bear cub Henry and various habitat displays, together with the crowd favourite dolphin and seal shows, played a significant role in the success of Sea World this year with overall attendances at Sea World up a healthy 7.7% compared to the previous year. The change out of older rides and attractions over the past couple of years has refreshed the park and provided the impetus for ongoing improved visitation and strengthens our calling card into China and South East Asia. 

IMAGES: L to R - Wet’n’Wild Gold Coast; Sea World Resort & Water Park; Wet’n’Wild Sydney 

In a continuation of its impressive first half performance, the Sea World Resort & Water Park finished the year with revenue up 10.5% on the previous year and operating profit increased by 13.7%. This 402 room Resort continued to be one of the Gold Coast’s pre-eminent hotels with over 90% occupancy rates. The recent introduction of the Splash Bash Nickelodeon themed water park at the Resort remains a significant competitive advantage for the Resort and is well received by customers. This unique water park and resort combination, proximity to the Sea World theme park and commitment to ongoing room refurbishment and plant integrity programs has proven to be very successful. In addition, in July 2015 the Sea World Resort & Water Park will open an 800 seat Conference Centre to complement the successful Resort. This will provide the Resort with new business opportunities, and it is expected it will have additional flow-on benefits to the Company’s other Gold Coast parks. With significant confirmed bookings already taken, VRL sees this as a new incremental revenue stream. 

Robust trading at Wet’n’Wild Gold Coast continued during the year although slightly down on the prior year’s strong performance. The water park enjoys loyal local support and will be enhanced by a brand new themed area for children, Wet’n’Wild Jr, a scaled down version of the adult water slides, which will further cater for the young family market. 

The Company’s Australian Outback Spectacular, Sea World Helicopters and Paradise Country attractions, also on the Gold Coast, complement the Company’s main Gold Coast theme parks. Paradise Country, an authentic Aussie Farm experience, has become a hit destination for visitors to the Gold Coast with an outstanding performance during the year, with attendances up 8.3% on the previous year, driving a 19.7% increase in revenue. This success was primarily due to an aggressive approach to new business, specifically focused on the Chinese market. 

In addition, adjacent to Warner Bros. Movie World is the world standard Village Roadshow Studios whose results improved 

