each country being it's own premise must have been a minor inconvenience
COVID-19’s Impacts on BGW
- Thread starter WDWRLD
- Start date
Interesting - so in that sense would it be possible for @rswashdc's idea to be feasible from the COVID-19 restrictions in some sense or another?
Yeah I think it is! And I’m glad to be apart of this!
My guess would be no because the governor applied specific regulations to the theme parks. Each individual store/shop does not have it's own business license instead the park as an entity has a license
I would think the parks could have applied for a waiver to open stores and restaurants only under similar conditions to what a shopping mall has to follow. This could have allowed them to open in phase 2 potentially.
They can’t. While a mall is owned by an entity, the spaces are leased out and choices to open and operate are up to the individual stores. They were able to open because each store was able to individually regulate the gathering limits on their own. In any parks case it’s often difficult to regulate that way, there’s no individual owner/operators of each location, and once on property the park as a whole is responsible for following the guidelines, not the individual shopping locations.
To give an example of what I mean here:
When we bumped up a phase, the Short Pump Mall reopened. However as I walked around roughly 40% of stores chose to stay closed. Each individual store was responsible for customers. There were some stores that close to fully opened with operations as usual (Macy’s) and some that were limiting the number of people in and had a line (Pottery Barn) and some that were appointment shopping only (William Sonoma). Many stores that haven’t in the past were doing online order pickup in store to help alleviate the inflow.
For a park to manage everything like that would be incredibly difficult to do. Especially when you are talking about one, maybe two points of ingress and egress vs a mall with 10+ points, wider colonnades, and frankly a smaller footprint to manage with bigger stores.
It’s happening!
Told you all I was optimistic. Now lets see if today can get even better... ?
Let's not forget, how many people would be willing to forgo normal restaurants to go eat at the park when there's nothing else open at the park?
And before anyone says dining plan, unless they're using such a time period to upsell the heck out of them (eat here now and save 20% on dining passes good through 2021)... And even then - it's unrealistic to think the park would make money at all IMO - easier to stay shut down and not have higher losses.
And before anyone says dining plan, unless they're using such a time period to upsell the heck out of them (eat here now and save 20% on dining passes good through 2021)... And even then - it's unrealistic to think the park would make money at all IMO - easier to stay shut down and not have higher losses.
Most likely it would be people with meal plans going to get “free” meals. Additionally merchandise is absurdly marked up and the park makes its money by having you as a captive shopper. If something doesn’t have the BGW logo on it why should I pay the parks premium right now over getting it elsewhere? And even if it did have the logo, the likelihood of selling enough to actually make a profit is so low that opening like that wouldn’t do much for the bottom line.
If it's anything like what I saw in Old Town Alexandria during phase 1/2, the park may have done really well opening up England/Scotland/Ireland to walk around and have food/drinks. People just wanted to get out - walk around, get some ice cream, have a drink, etc.
Even if they didn't make money or took a small loss, the customer goodwill and trust with the government that it's safe to operate would be worth the costs. They are playing catch up now having to prove it's safe to operate, when instead they could have been doing that 2 months ago. Universal and Disney did the right thing piloting opening with their restaurant/shopping districts as a proof of concept on what reopening would look like and it paid off in the park's full reopening.
They won’t operate at a loss. They are a business with shareholders to report to.
I also think the comparison to large theme parks based in Florida is misleading. The expectations and concerns of state and local officials in Orlando are vastly different than their counterparts in the Commonwealth. Additionally, Disney and Uni likely have more flexibility in their budgets to play around with opening strategies. And of course, Disney Springs and CityWalk have no real equivalent at BGW, as all of the park's stores and restaurants are owned and operated by BGW and contained behind the turnstiles.
They are losing money right now. If they can lose less money by running at a loss it still could be worthwhile from a business point of view.
Loss leaders are quite common in business to make more profits elsewhere. Businesses that require every aspect of their business to be profitable all the time don't tend to do well over time.
I agree BGW operates in a different environment than the Florida parks, but if they look at creating a safe, desirable activity for locals on the peninsula to come out and visit, that's a good business choice. Guests coming out to have a drink, a snack, and maybe pick up an item at one of the stores while enjoying the atmosphere of the park isn't bad for business.
There's a reason restaurants and stores kept open even with limited sales and the operating restrictions - you don't want to lose your customer base and you want them to stay in the habit of buying there.
thank you for making this point. I don't think that people understand how often companies will run certain divisions at a loss because running still means higher profits then not running it because of fixed costs. Which is basically what SEAS is doing with all their parks right now. Just trying to be at a point where they make enough money than any losses they incur are less than the money they would lose by not even opening.
England, Scotland, Ireland and France.
Busch Gardens Williamsburg expected to begin reopening in early August, parent company says
WILLIAMSBURG, Va. (WAVY) — The parent company of Busch Gardens says it expects its Williamsburg park to start a phased reopening in early August, despite no indication from Gov. Ralph Northam…
www.wavy.com