Theme parks are making a splash with their own water worlds

LONDON, June 28 — With summer now upon us, many theme parks are betting on refreshing experiences, with slides offering thrills as exciting as a roller coaster. Water parks are becoming destinations in their own right, offering a whole new way to enjoy leisure attractions, such as Germany’s Europa-Park.

For the first time in almost 50 years, the Europa-Park theme park in Rust, Germany, welcomed six million visitors in 2022. A laudable achievement just two years after the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. This success is the result of colossal investments to offer visitors a constantly updated experience.

Shortly before the Covid-19 pandemic, Europa-Park was busy rebuilding its Scandinavia area, which had been ravaged by fire, and setting up the four-star Kronasar museum-hotel themed on great adventurers and explorers. But the attraction also inaugurated its biggest project yet: a water park called Rulantica — a combination of Rust (Europa-Park’s hometown) and Atlantic.

A budget of €180 million (RM919 million) was earmarked for the launch of this gigantic 450,000 sq m project. And while visitors can still expect to wait in line and shop for snacks and sandwiches like in any other zone of the theme park, here, the experience is enjoyed in a swimsuit.

Digital water experiences

Last year’s record visitor numbers at Europa-Park were due in part to visits to Rulantica, which benefits from its own admission tickets. French visitors who cross the German border account for 25 per cent of the Rust-based theme park’s clientele, a figure that rises to 30 per cent for Rulantica.

And just as theme parks must continually innovate to keep fans coming back, the aquatic destination operated by the Mack family — owners of Europa-Park — continues to make a splash. Earlier this year, for example, Europe’s largest speed slide opened in the park. You have to climb to a height of 30 metres to launch yourself down one of the eight colourful chutes of this slide, which is the biggest addition since the opening of Rulantica. In 2020, despite the pandemic, the water park opened the world’s first “diving theatre,” a VR-based snorkelling experience.

Voted the world’s best theme park eight times, Europa-Park has demonstrated its expertise in turning a theme park into a booming business. But it’s not only in Germany that water-based projects are on the agenda.

France’s Futuroscope told ETX Studio that it had embarked on a vast investment policy to become a “veritable resort,” including themed hotels. While €300 million has been budgeted for the construction of new attractions and hotels between 2020 and 2025, the park, which has always relied on sensory experiences to build its visitor experience, is planning to install an indoor water park.

“It will offer aqua-digital experiences like nowhere else, organised around three zones: a children’s zone, a thrill zone with eight slides, and an immersion zone combining image projection on water,” explains Laure Mosseron, Futuroscope’s marketing director. Just like at Rulantica, there will be separate ticketing for this part of the park.

Even Disneyland is thinking of taking the plunge. The California-based park in Anaheim unveiled last May a project to redesign the Paradise Pier Hotel, which will be integrated into a complex themed on the Pixar hit Finding Nemo. The world’s most famous clownfish will be the star of this new zone, which will feature a 40-metre-long slide.

While these numerous new aquatic attractions are innovative and rethink the concept of a theme park trip, the idea of installing water slides in this kind of leisure park is not completely new.

In Belgium and in France’s Rhône-Alpes region, the Walibi amusement parks have featured water slides for some time now. In Belgium, Aqualibi has been around since 1986! An extension of almost 1,000 sq m is due to open by the end of the year. New-generation slides, powered by water jet propulsion technology, will be among the new features for visitors to try. Belgium is a forerunner in this field, as is Spain, with its Siam Park in Tenerife in the Canary Islands.

But it’s Dubai that has become the world’s most coveted destination for its successful water parks. These sites are even used as promotional tools by the destination’s tourism board. The legendary Atlantis resort, for example, boasts the world’s largest water park, where a slide sends the most daring swimmers into a shark-infested pool! — ETX Studio