Funworld July 2008

Ocean Park in Hong Kong turned 30 last year. As the facility enters its fourth decade, Chief Executive Tom Mehrmann is masterminding its transformation into a bigger and better version of its old self. Mehrmann, who joined the park in February 2004, has been in the business for 31 years. He is credited with maintaining four years of record-breaking performance at his current location by spearheading the master plan for redevelopment, and raising the funds to execute it.

Mehrmann’s career in amusement parks began when he took a summer job as a sweeper at Knott’s Berry Farm in California and eventually became vice president of park operations and entertainment. He went on to work for Six Flags, where he oversaw the redesign of Warner Brothers Movie World in Spain before coming to Ocean Park.

Originally an oceanarium when it opened in 1977 as a nonprofit public trust, Ocean Park is now an educational theme park. Though it has always been self-funded, funds for the redevelopment, are being obtained through loans for the first time. Originally built for 1.5 million visitors a year, the park now draws 5 million visitors annually. It covers more than 870,000 square meters (215 acres) with three attraction areas: the Lowland, the Headland, and Tai Shue Wan (Middle Kingdom).

The park has a very strong education program that is entrenched as a part of the curriculum in many educational institutions in Hong Kong. The Ocean Park Academy runs educational tours for students and teachers, offering more than 30 tours for 40,000 students on giant pandas, dolphins and sea lions, birds, fish, and plants.

In March 2005, Ocean Park announced its Master Redevelopment Project aimed at turning the park into the world’s best marine-based theme park, strengthening Hong Kong’s position as a premier tourist destination. The number of attractions and rides is to double from 35 to 70.
The park embarked on its six-year, eight-phase redevelopment plan in late 2006. Throughout the entire project, Ocean Park will be running as usual, carrying out all its education, conservation, and entertainment programs.

Mehrmann talks to FUNWORLD about the changes the park’s redevelopment will bring.

FUNWORLD: What is the aim of the redevelopment?
Tom Mehrmann: The goal is to take the best things—the nostalgia, the location, the animals, the icons—and add to those to create a new destination. We want to focus on our differential qualities. Ocean Park is a Hong Kong park; it’s very local and we have generational values. It’s been around longer than 30 years, and there is a connection to the market. People go to the park as children, and now they are bringing their children.

FW: How did the park decide to expand the facility?
TM: The redevelopment plans came about because of the arrival of Hong Kong Disneyland [in 2005]. It led to rethinking and looking at how to remain competitive. How do we complement—that was the key; understanding our differences allow us to complement Disney. We don’t actually compete with them on product; all we compete for is discretionary time and money of the people in the market. So we want to make sure our differential values are strong enough to make them almost irrelevant as a competitor. I think we’ve been very successful with that.

FW: How would you describe those values?
TM: Animals are the base of our differential offering—how we present them in their natural environments. We try to showcase the natural behavior of animals to enable people to see them in a way they’ve not done before. The key is finding a balance between human entertainment and natural animal behavior. That makes us different from a lot of theme parks in the world.

FW: What are some changes that will take place?
TM: The expansion will be carried out in three different areas: the Lowland, the Tai Shue Wan, and the Headland. There is a lot of land in Tai Shue Wan that has not been utilized for the park. There will be some consolidation so that the park will be just two zones: the Waterfront and the Summit.

Things will be moved around a bit so it will be about 10 to 15 acres bigger. This is slated for completion in 2012. We will have just one exit and entrance—there are two currently. So we’ll consolidate all the parking and logistics at one location. At the entrance, we’ll have a mid-priced three-star hotel with 660 rooms—Ocean Hotel. Then one four-star hotel, Fisherman’s Wharf, with 460 rooms in Tai Shue Wan, and a five-star spa hotel at the Summit; some-thing boutiquey with 250 rooms. It will be our signature hotel. The first two hotels will be completed in 2011, and the spa hotel in 2014.

We’ll add more rides in the Tai Shue Wan area, too. The park is going to look and feel different. We don’t want to lose the feel of nostalgia, the park’s heart and soul; we want things to blend well. A funicular that can move 500 people an hour to transport people between the Headland and Low-land will be opening in the third quarter of 2009; [it will] complement the cable car, which is the only method of transporting people between the two areas within the park right now. The Mass Transit Railway line and station has been approved and will be completed before 2015; the station entrance will be at the front gate. This will make it one step closer to a world-class park.

FW: What are some challenges and issues faced in the redevelopment?
TM: The single greatest challenge to our development plans is the falling value of the United States dollar. On one hand, it’s a good thing as the RMB (Chinese currency) and euro now give better spend here, so there are more visitors from these places. But it’s also leading to the escalation of construction costs, as the Hong Kong dollar is pegged to the U.S. dollar, which leads to budget and management issues. We have a budget of HKD 5.55 billion (about US$712 million), but we are ending up with a different value. So we have to look hard at the scope and value of construction. The marketing line was that we were going to have 70 rides and attractions, but the reality was close to 85. Our model of 70 gives us the opportunity and capacity to handle up to 8 million visitors a year—double the current capacity, so we knew we had the scope to adjust that number with the escalation of costs—so the first thing we can do is adjusting from 85 to 70 to stay within budget.

FW: What are some trends you have noticed with the demographic of visitors at Ocean Park?
TM: Ocean Park is geared toward families: parents, kids, and grandparents. Geographically, Hong Kong has 7 million people, which is not a lot—but across the border in Guangdong (Southern China), there are 80million people; Southern Chinamakes up 80 percent of our mainland visitors. We have opened offices in Guangzhou, Shanghai, and in Beijing.We’re also looking at the second- and third-tier cities in China.We have more visitors from China now with the visa relaxation program, and we are seeingmore free independent travelers coming on their own with family and friends—I would say they make up 20 percent of attendance. We also have a lot of visitors from Southeast Asia, as well as from Korea and the Philippines, and are seeing an increase in visitors from India.

FW: With more visitors from China, are there any changes to the entertainment at the park?
TM: We now have Chinese acrobatic shows, which are relevant to themarket we serve.We have two pairs of breeding pandas, so at some point down the road we could have baby pandas. We are also getting red pandas and are building a goldfish pavilion— they are going to be presented as treasures or works of art. Goldfish are very treasured in China, and we
want to showcase them in a creative way.

LimHui Sin is awriter based in China. Originally from Singapore, she has been living in Shanghai for six years. She can be reached at sinify@gmail.com.