Funworld June 2011

“Keep the best and improve the rest.” This mantra guides Ocean Park Hong Kong’s current master redevelopment project, budgeted at HK$5.5 billion (US$705 million). The six-year undertaking will reposition the park on the cutting edge of global standards, while maintaining its homegrown charm. The redesign consists of staggered phases, the first of which opened in 2009.

One year remains before the project is slated for completion. Public feedback has been positive thus far, as park attendance is hitting record levels. Ocean Park’s 100 millionth guest visited on Feb. 18, during a month that shattered the park’s previous monthly attendance records.

“Ocean Park was born out of a very simple idea,” says Chief Executive Tom Mehrmann. “It’s amazing what’s transpired over the past 34 years.”

Redesigning a Classic: ‘Keep the Best, Improve the Rest’
Ocean Park’s unique topography—i.e., a mountain jutting from the South China Sea—divides the park into distinct regions. But new this year: Admission is concentrated at one massive gate.

The park previously used two entrance and exit gates. Iconic cable cars took visitors to and from the waterfront and mountaintop, while shuttle buses ferried others around the park’s perimeter. A new funicular train—the high-speed “Ocean Express”—travels through a mountain tunnel in place of the shuttle-bus option. This is not just a way to move people, however; open since September 2009, “Ocean Express” is a themed attraction of its own, giving guests the impression they’re traveling underwater during the three minute journey.

The new grand entrance embodies the new park. Ocean Square features a conservation kiosk and otter exhibit, which helps to immediately establish the park’s conservation message. Fountains spray water over whimsical sculptures of sea creatures as tourists pose for photos beside colossal sea horses.

“Before guests even go through turnstiles, they’re getting a feel for what the Ocean Park experience is going to be,” Houghland says.

Aqua City Dazzles by Day, Sparkles at Night
Just inside the entry plaza, Aqua City opens with a sweeping vista of the park, as food and retail options surround a lagoon. “The theme is aqua nouveau,” says Walter Kerr, the park’s executive director of project development.

“Aqua nouveau” translates into wavy architectural elements, jellyfish building structures, and fin- or tentacle-like arms wrapping Aqua City’s centerpiece—the Grand Aquarium— a three-story blue pearl filled with 5,000 fish and Hong Kong’s first restaurant within an aquarium.

The lagoon transforms at night with the water and pyrotechnics show “Symbio,” featuring the world’s first 360- degree water screen. Set to Oscar-winning composer Peter Lehmann’s score, “Symbio” tells a story (complete with water blasts and flame jets) of two dragons fighting for power only to be reunited through love and harmony with man and the environment.

Redevelop or Die!
Ocean Park has offered refuge from Hong Kong’s frantic pace since 1977. The colonial government provided the oceanfront property free of charge, and the local Hong Kong Jockey Club funded the park’s original botanical garden, petting zoo, and a few modest rides.

The park became an independent statutory body with a government-appointed board of directors in 1987. Today it remains an independent nonprofit company committed to connecting residents with nature through education, entertainment, and conservation.

Over the past few decades, Hong Kong burst into international prominence and Ocean Park followed suit. Skyscrapers raced into the clouds above the then-British colony, while on the southern side of Hong Kong Island, the park’s new roller coasters shot thrill-seekers skyward—high enough to peer over mountains and catch glimpses of the city.

Britain returned Hong Kong to Beijing’s control in 1997 (under the policy of “one country, two systems”). China’s rising affluence has produced a new leisure class, eager to spend money in the nearby Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong. Mainland tourists now flood the city during public holidays such as the Chinese Lunar New Year and other so-called “golden weeks.”

Though Ocean Park’s master redevelopment plan wasn’t finalized until 2006, its roots trace back to the 1997 Asian financial crisis, which cost the facility a million visitors the following year (3.8 to 2.8 million). From that point on, “we could not get ourselves out of this hole,” Mehrmann recalls. Then in 1999, The Walt Disney Company announced it would open Disneyland in Hong Kong. So with plummeting attendance and a massive mouse-shaped competitor about to jump into the region, Ocean Park reached a crossroads; the SARS crisis of 2003 didn’t help, either.

“What are we going to do? Do we just forget the park and let it become real estate development, or do we invest? That debate was raging for a while,” Mehrmann says.

But as the government began to focus more strongly on tourism following the SARS outbreak, park leaders decided to dig in instead of drop out. With an eight-phase plan in place in 2004, they secured the necessary financing and finally broke ground on the new projects in November 2006, or a little more than a year after Hong Kong Disneyland opened on Lantau Island, a large island west of Hong Kong Island.

Both parks share similarities. They include a gauntlet of rides, are fully trilingual (Cantonese, Mandarin, and English), and boast their own unique teams of mascots. But they occupy different niches. Disney has its iconic Mickey Mouse and nightly fireworks, while Ocean Park has real-life pandas, dolphin shows, and a world-renowned breeding facility. “The difference is ‘real’,” says Todd Houghland, Ocean Park’s executive director of operations and entertainment.

Further Expansion Plans
Ocean Park unveiled Aqua City in early 2010. Elsewhere in the park, redesign projects are at different stages of completion. Amazing Asian Animals was the master plan’s first major project to open. It features the park’s youngest giant pandas, new red pandas, Chinese alligators, giant salamanders, and a special goldfish exhibit that explores the historical importance of goldfish in China.

A rainforest exhibit will open in June, followed by Thrill Mountain toward the end of the year. As the name suggests, Thrill Mountain will feature a hyper-coaster and other new rides. “Polar Adventure” will conclude the redevelopment with North and South Pole exhibits, a proposed beluga whale display, and another roller coaster. Kerr says the staggered grand openings help to maximize media coverage and public interest.

Old favorites remain at the park. They include a stadium dolphin show, the original panda habitat, Chinese sturgeon, and the park’s iconic cable car (among others).

Redevelopment Boosts In-Park Spending
Aesthetic designs and fun attractions are essential for any amusement park’s redevelopment. But there needs to be a return on the investment. Increased in-park spending is essential.

Consolidating entry and exit played a major role in boosting park revenue from food and retail, says Joseph Leung, Ocean Park’s executive director of revenue. “Symbio” also kept the park open after sunset, giving visitors time to grab a meal or go shopping before the nighttime show.

Since the opening of Aqua City, the average visitor’s length of stay increased 15 percent during nonpeak periods and 30 percent during weekends and holiday periods. Since last year in-park spending jumped from 18 to 30 percent of total revenue. Leung hopes in-park spending will provide a revenue stream equal to ticket sales by the end of the redevelopment project.

Leung says preliminary plans for the master redevelopment project began as soon as Disney started setting up shop in Hong Kong. An independent financial analyst studied Ocean Park’s retail strategy in 2004 and concluded that food and retail operations should move in-house to tap the captive audience. They had already ceased outsourcing retail operations three years prior and resumed control of food and warehouse operations in 2005.

Various hotel projects are currently in the design stage; the old entrance at Tai Shue Wan is slated for this purpose. New hotels not affiliated with the park have recently opened, selling Ocean Park packages with shuttles and admission. “We have every confidence that in-park hotels would be able to capture additional revenue,” Leung says.

Neptune’s Restaurant, located inside the Grand Aquarium, opened with the rest of Aqua City. The restaurant is the park’s first foray into fine dining. Reservations were strong for the first two months of operations, says Stephen Chow, food and beverage operations manager. Locals seemed especially eager to clink glasses and munch on seafood or steaks as schools of bluefin tuna and mackerel circled behind the glass.

Other new food options include an increased selection of Cantonese cuisine’s most notable offerings: dim sum, cha siu, and egg tarts. Chow says additional unique restaurants will open with each subsequent phase of the redevelopment.

Retail sales doubled with the opening of Aqua City, says Shirley Louie, the park’s senior retail manager. Ocean Park prepared more than 1,000 new items for sale at the grand opening; most carry some sort of ecological message, or a connection to the animals in the park. The shops even began selling a line of high-end products, including silver-plated jewelry.

Louie says Ocean Park hired a local artist and a pop star to design T-shirts, which sold well and helped to reinforce its identity as “Hong Kong people’s park.” Other top-selling items include shark-head and fish-head hats.

The Chinese Lunar New Year period brings peaks park attendances. This year, the holiday followed the grand opening of Aqua City by one week. Not only was the park filled almost to capacity all week, but retail and food profits also increased more than 70 percent when compared to the same holiday period last year.

Core Values: Education and Conservation
Suzanne Gendron, Ocean Park’s executive director of zoological operations and education, was active in every step of the redesign planning to ensure education and conservation would be incorporated into every exhibit (even the roller coasters, which offer local physics students a unique case study every year).

“Our mission is to connect people with nature, and we want to provide guests with memorable experiences that combine entertainment with education and inspire lifelong learning and conservation advocacy,” she says.

Animal habitats are more multifaceted after the redesign. For example, Ocean Park’s original panda exhibit was dedicated only to pandas; the new Amazing Asian Animals focuses on pandas’ larger ecosystem. Gendron says the same approach will be evident in the Rainforest and Polar Adventure.

“The approach we are taking with all of our exhibits is not to tell a single species story, but more of an ecological story to why we need to protect these species, and as umbrella species, they are protecting a whole environment,” she says.

Each exhibit features an environmental message. The Grand Aquarium’s theme highlights depleting ocean fisheries; The Rainforest teaches about deforestation; Polar Adventure explores the impact of climate change. Exhibits also contain classrooms for students.

Every new exhibit includes a variety of educational programs designed for local students and educators participating in the park’s Ocean Park Academy. More than 550,000 students have passed through more than 40 education programs since the academy began in 1992.

Educational attractions aren’t just for students, either. The park will soon begin offering guided snorkeling in shallow portions of Grand Aquarium during the summer. Snorkeling will supplement similar close-encounter activities the park currently has available for visitors who wish to get into the water with dolphins. Gendron says another marine mammal encounter program is planned for Polar Adventure.

Gendron is also the director of the Ocean Park Conservation Foundation. She says the park donated more than HK$8 million (US$1 million) to the foundation in the 2009/2010 fiscal year alone. Donation kiosks are now scattered throughout the park where visitors can donate to the foundation’s various conservation efforts (including panda and dolphin research).

For the past six years, one dollar from every park admission goes to the fund, and a kiosk in the Grand Aquarium allows visitors to scan their admission ticket barcode to decide where the money goes. “We believe that when people can begin making a choice, it will motivate them to more positive conservation actions,” Gendron says.

The park uses entertainment as a method for enhancing and spreading its education and conservation mission; Gendron asserts that fun and learning are not mutually exclusive. She says lifelong learning starts with the inspiration Ocean Park tries to offer.

“That balance is part of who we are,” she says. “We were founded as a conservation, education, and entertainment entity, and we’ve only strengthened that role.”

Doug Meigs is a freelance journalist based in Hong Kong. Senior Editor Jeremy Schoolfield contributed to this report.