After a two-year Covid-induced hiatus, which affected all players, Wonderla Holidays Limitedreported a strong performance in its latest quarter, reporting a three fold rise in revenue to ₹152.3 crore, compared to the previous quarter.
After six consecutive quarters of reporting losses, Wonderla also reported a net profit of ₹68.2 crore in the latest ending 30 June. The park operator intends to focus on increasing the revenue share of non-ticket business to 30 per cent over the next two years, to further strengthen profitability.
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Its non-ticket business comprises food and beverage and retail business. “We have expanded F&B already—by refurbishing a lot of our restaurants, and in the next 18 months or more, all of our restaurants will be completely refurbished. This is where we are putting a lot of emphasis for this year,” said Arun K Chittilappilly, Managing Director of Wonderla Holidays Ltd.
Seventy-five per cent of Wonderla’s business comes from the ticket business, which includes amusement parks and resorts. The MD said he believes that greater opportunities lie in scaling up the non-ticket business.
Chittilappilly said, “We have invested in a complete makeover of the menu and the look of the F&B business, which is a part of this year’s capex with a total investment of ₹3 crore.”
Growth and expansion
Wonderla has two parks in the pipeline — Chennai and Bhubneshwar. It has planned an investment of ₹350-400 crore for the Chennai one, which would have a seating capacity of 1.2 million people, while the Bhubaneshwar project is relatively smaller in size and investment, involving an investment of ₹100 crore and half the capacity of Chennai. Both are expected to be finished within the next two-and-a-half years.
In addition to its organic expansion, the amusement park chain wants to work with existing parks.
“We are looking to do contract management of some facilities without investment, where we take over some of the parks. We are talking to some players in Maharashtra, but it is too soon to comment further,” said the MD, adding, “We are talking to a lot of State governments, such as Gujarat, Maharashtra, and Goa for new projects in the domestic tourism sector. We are constantly looking out for new opportunities.”
Sustainable rooms
The amusement park will add 20-30 rooms to the existing capacity of 84 rooms at its Bengaluru Resort.
“We are getting into some form of sustainable rooms with a low carbon footprint and adding adventure park options, such as ziplining, to bring a little more of an amusement park kind of vibe into the resort. We will be expanding the resort soon, and in the next six months, we will open up all those new things,” added Chittilappilly.
Wonderla operates three theme parks in Kochi, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad, and one resort in Bengaluru.