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Never resting on its laurels, this European theme park franchise continues to branch out
by Juliana Gilling
 “Eternal life” isn’t the answer you expect when you ask why a company entered the theme park industry. But that’s exactly what the founders of Belgian media group Studio 100 wanted for their children’s television characters—including Samson, Gert, and Plop the gnome—when they embarked on the business a decade ago. “We started with television, we had merchandising, and then we thought, ‘How do we make sure that our characters live on?’ The next step was a theme park,” says president of the Studio 100 board and Plopsa parks’ CEO, Steve Van Den Kerkhof. Four parks later, 2 million visitors a year, and an annual turnover of €45 million (US$58 million), the group is well on the way to realizing its dream.
And now that dream is getting bigger. Van Den Kerkhof plans to expand beyond Plopsa parks’ existing markets in Belgium and the Netherlands into Germany: “In five years we must have 2.5 million visitors coming from Germany. The challenge is to double the number of parks, double the visitors, the EBITDA, and the turnover. For me, personally, and for the company, it’s a big ambition, but we know what we have to do,” he says.
Once Upon a Time
At first, managing the transition from media to theme parks was no fairytale. The group started by acquiring Meli-Park in 1999 and rebranding it as Plopsaland De Panne. “It wasn’t easy because we had to change an old-fashioned park in six months,” says Van Den Kerkhof. “If I were to redo it, I would close the park for a year to do the change because people had high expectations. In the first year we changed the name and invested a lot of money in new infrastructure—in things that the visitors can’t see immediately, but which are very important in a theme park—but we were not yet Plopsaland; we were a park in transformation. Now we are almost there.”
It helped that Studio 100 won the backing of top Belgian media company VTM, which came on board initially as a joint venture partner in the theme parks (Studio 100 bought back its shares in 2005 with the backing of Belgium’s Fortis bank, now owned by BNP Paribas). “VTM had the main commercial television channel, magazines, and newspapers, so it was a big advantage to have them as a shareholder. It worked well because we had a media campaign that was five times bigger than we could have afforded. Within two years everybody knew of Plopsaland,” says Van Den Kerkhof.
After Plopsaland De Panne, the group built an indoor Plopsa park at Hasselt (2005) and acquired and redeveloped the Télécoo park as Plopsa Coo (2006). This year Plopsa made its debut in the Netherlands with the opening of the Plopsa Coervorden indoor park.
Euro Vision
Van Den Kerkhof is proud of what Plopsa accomplished in its first decade: “This year at Plopsaland De Panne we attracted around 1.1 million people. Plopsa Coo used to have 100,000 visitors before we took it over, and this year we’ll end at 400,000. Hasselt has 325,000 visitors and in Coervorden we’ll have 400,000 visitors, even more than we expected. 2010 is a record year for us—we’ve never had so many people in the parks. We will have an increase of 6-7 percent, up from 2009, which was also a very good year.”
By developing multiple attractions, Van Den Kerkhof believes the group has spread its reach and risk: “Plopsaland De Panne, for instance, is located at the coast where there aren’t many people within a one-hour drive. This was the reason not to over-invest in one place. Also, it can be difficult for families with small children to drive two or three hours to a theme park to meet their favorite characters—it’s a bit too far (80 percent of Plopsaland De Panne’s visitors live within a 1.5-hour drive time). With the indoor parks we give children and their parents the chance to try what we have, and we use these parks to convince people to visit the outdoor parks,” he says.
Currently 25 percent of Plopsa’s visitors come from the Netherlands, 20 percent are from the French part of Belgium, 10 percent are from the Walloon part of Belgium, and the rest are Flemish. People typically stay between 7-8 hours at the outdoor parks and 4-5 hours at the indoor parks (most visitors live within an hour’s drive of the indoor attractions).
“The theme park investments we are making in the Benelux are coming from our own cash,” explains Van Den Kerkhof. “We reinvest all the money that we earn because we want to protect the quality of the parks. For the expansion to Germany, of course, we will need the help of our banks. When we do a new project, a third of the means will come from us and two-thirds maximum from a bank.
“In Germany, we are looking to take over one outdoor park and build two or three indoor parks by 2015,” Van Den Kerkhof continues. “The theme park should have a capacity that is already sufficient for us today—about 1 million people— and have a lot of rides, so that we can put almost all our money into theming. It’s about adding value; the product must be right,” he says.
Brand Popularity
Germany is the “logical place” for the group’s expansion, given the characters that Studio 100 can use for inspiration. In 2009, the company acquired EM Entertainment’s popular children’s catalogue, gaining access to classic kids’ brands, including Maya the Bee, Vicky the Viking, and Heidi.
“We’re working day and night on 72 new Maya the Bee episodes, and we plan to put a Maya the Bee area in Plopsaland De Panne for next season,” says Van Den Kerkhof.
The EM properties are raising Studio 100’s profile on the global stage, and theme parks worldwide are taking notice: “We are receiving more and more questions from serious parties— existing theme parks—that are interested in having our brands,” says Van Den Kerkhof. He says Plopsa is taking a booth at IAAPA Attractions Expo 2011 to showcase the opportunities: “We will license the brands to parks in other countries where we have no ambitions to start our own theme parks. But there are five or six core business countries where we would never sell our brands because we would expect to develop there.”
A self-confessed “financial guy” who worked with Arthur Andersen before joining Studio 100 and Plopsa, Van Den Kerkhof has “a lot of respect for the big corporate groups which are making beautiful financial figures by taking over theme parks,” but says his goal is different. “I think a good theme park is like a restaurant—when the chef is there, the food is better. So, every day, for at least an hour, I’ll be walking in one of our parks. If you want to do a good job, your theme park must be your baby.” With a growing family of parks, it looks as if Van Den Kerkhof will have his hands full in the next five years.
Visit www.plopsa.be/ for more information.
Juliana Gilling is a special attractions journalist. E-mail: julianagilling@gmail.com.
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