Making a splash

Themed Entertainment Association/Economics Research Associates' Attraction Attendance Report 2007 lists Wild Wadi Water Park in Dubai as the world's 1

General manager of Wild Wadi Chris Perry says: "Obviously Muslim women don't feel comfortable swimming in front of a group of men. That's why we devised a plan to have Ladies' Night in the park."

"It took two years to recruit enough women to successfully pull-off those evenings but I have to say we've been running them for four years now and they've been very successful within the target groups.

"We see people coming from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain, as well as Abu Dhabi, so there are a lot of people that are attracted to this simply because there  is nothing else like it nearby."

 

Attracting women and more families is a common goal among the waterparks. "You can cut through all the demographics you want but a theme park has to appeal to families," says Gibbons.

Blunt says: "We have procedures in place that we don't allow too many groups of males to come in big parties, and our main aim is to establish ourselves as a family entertainment location."
 

Story continues below

"What we've done is introduce more corporate and family packages, and connections with hotels."

Perry also makes this point, adding: "We want to hopefully satisfy everybody but our main draw is families. That's who we try to attract the most.

"Within a family you could have very young children, teenagers and grandparents. We try to ensure that we're catering for everybody."

This is something that Ice Land Waterpark is also trying to achieve with the region's largest rain-dance pool. The shallow-water attraction will be enhanced with lighting effects and a DJ, encouraging up to 2000 people to dance in the rain.

Balwant Chawla, managing director of Polo RAK Amusements, the company developing Ice Land Waterpark says: "Children and grandparents can all dance together, there's no age limit and no smoking or drinking - it's just a really nice family attraction."

The Ice Land development will operate 365 days a year, like many waterparks in the region. This leads to other considerations such as best practice during the religious period of Ramadan.

Chawla says that the rain-dance pool is only a small part of the waterpark, so business should go on as usual. However, existing waterparks have noticed a slump in visitor numbers during the holy month. In order to accommodate this market, the Middle East and North African industries must be flexible to cultures and use effective targeting when marketing.

"While Ramadan has been slow, last year we noticed that more people go out in the evening so this year we've been open at night and we've had quite a few people come along," says Blunt.

"There are also lot of nationals and ex-pats who are likely to come over for the weekend," he adds. "Regional is a growing market for us so we've done a lot of marketing, outdoor advertising and campaigns specifically for the GCC."