Wonderla Holidays Pvt. Ltd, which runs amusement parks in Bangalore and Kochi, is venturing into hospitality business at these locations and plans to add two more amusement parks in the South, all at an investment of over Rs 300 crore, Mr Arun K. Chittilappilly, Executive Director, said.
The three-star resorts would target business and leisure tourists. The first , an 84-room project, would come up late this year in the 85-acre amusement park area at Bidadi near Bangalore, followed by Kochi. The hotels may cost around Rs 25 crore each.
This would be replicated later at the parks proposed at Chennai and Hyderabad by 2014, said Mr Chittilappilly, whose Kerala-based family started the parks in 2005. The new ventures would draw from company resources and bank credit. Tapping private equity was still a thought, he said on Tuesday.
Offshoot business
The Chittilappilly family also runs V-Guard Industries, the Rs 730-crore manufacturer of voltage stabilisers, solar heaters, pumps and electrical devices.
“Hospitality is an offshoot business and we had it even in the master plan. The USP is still to run amusement parks,” across the country, he said. Kochi's Veega Land had been re-branded Wonderla and merged with Wonderla Holidays, making it the largest amusement entity in the country. New attractions had been added at the parks.
Break-even
The Wonderla parks had grown into a Rs 91-crore business and enjoyed high 50 per cent profitability and 30 per cent yearly growth. They had broken even in their first year of operation. Elsewhere in the world, it was natural to have a resort or hotel within an amusement park, as in the case of Universal Parks & Resorts, Disney or Six Flags.
“We are modelling ourselves in that way, though on a smaller scale.” Each amusement park got around 9 lakh visitors last year.