Can you remember
the London skyline prior to the London Eye (TLE)? Well, if you do it is a clear indication of your age - meaning you are older than 14. I vividly remember when "The London Eye" was launched for the millennium celebrations. TLE was the most
remarkable and memorable venue ever conceived by mankind. As a venue and attraction, TLE was a crazy
concept that went beyond expectations, it achieved and continues to achieve
great success.
London took a risk placing the wheel in the heart of the city, embracing and pioneering a new way of sightseeing – thanks to the creative
imagination and engineering folks who took the risk of designing such an incredible
landmark. Pioneers and visionaries of such extravagant and unique ideas are not always properly
acknowledged and all too often their revolutionary ideas do not become a
reality. Actualization of these unique
opportunities requires strong decision makers who fully see the long term
benefit instead of the short-term return.
Visitation during the
first 6 months of 2013 for TLE, increased 9.6% vs the previous year breaking
the paradigm of outdoors sightseeing attraction require good weather. TLE in addition to the sightseeing experience
also offers event space and film location opportunities – earning revenue on
each of these channels.
Fast forward from
London and the Millennium celebrations, 14 years later and many world-wide cities
want or have plans on building a wheel. In fact, a few of these
cities are constructing or have announced an upcoming wheel development, including Dubai,
NYC and Orlando. The phenomena "give me one of these" is currently en vogue for such wheels. In fact, recently Las Vegas opened the High Roller wheel at the
LINQ and is already a must visit destination developed by Caesars Entertainment that has transformed Las Vegas Skyline.
What about all the wheel projects that were announced but never developed? What have we learned along the way? Along the way, there
were plenty of financial misadventures. The Beijing Great Wheel, Great Berlin Wheel and Jeddah Eye developments were all suspended indefinitely. While the Great Dubai Wheel and the Great Orlando Wheel have re-emerged under new direction and leadership following periods of suspension. Of the announced wheels, some will become a reality like the High Roller while others may become another uncompleted project. Only time will tell.
Let’s take a look
at the New York Wheel, located at Staten Island, a geographically
challenged location for generating daily traffic. To
overcome the less than premier location, the developers are attempting to generate additional foot traffic by integrating a value, luxury outlet shopping mall. Their hope is the outlet mall will increase
engagement and traffic from tourists and locals.
The venue and location will require a mixed
strategy:
- On the operations side, easy and frequent accessibility to the destination (Staten Island located) plus good directions to the venue.
- On the marketing and communication side, understanding how to generate daily traffic to the wheel and the retail
center.
I have worked in the observation
deck business twice in NYC twice. Observation decks, like wheels, are grouped together as tourist sightseeing destinations. These
type of sightseeing attractions have controllable and non-controllable factors which impact visitation - see Chart #1.
Back to the on-going project the Dubai wheel. To date, not much information has been released other than a presentation
at Cityscape Dubai 2013 which included a fantastic model by developer Meraas. The 210m
wheel, aptly named the "Dubai Eye", and inspired by the London Eye on the River
Thames, will be the central attraction of a new not-yet-constructed island.
The new Bluewaters Island Development is a 6 billion dirham project overseen by
UAE Meraas Holding.
Other mysterious
wheels under discussion include: the mysterious Hong Kong wheel that collapsed under Great City
Attractions Limited when the Great City Attractions Limited stopped trading in July 2012. I
believe Hong Kong deserves a big entertainment observation destination – so why
copy and paste the same concept? Why not take a risk and build a new, break-through, pioneering tourist destination befitting the grand Hong Kong skyline.
I am
consistently surprised by the the lack of new creativity towards new landmark
attractions. If developers are wed to the concept of a wheel, I wonder - will all the wheels have as great an impact on their cities as TLE impacted central London?
What
are the 3.0 entertainment options that developers can add to make destinations
and their wheels different and generate continuous traffic on daily basis
regardless of weather conditions? Are these wheels well located to target tourists or could
local residents benefit of such destinations?
At present, all the wheels currently under development lack consolidated and coordinated operational and branding knowledge.
The centralization and consolidation of wheel knowledge would be extremely useful in assessing the financial viability and prospects of new wheel developments as well as the final operators "branded" experience.
I’d love to add value with unique hook ideas to any of the wheels under development or shaping pioneering sightseeing developments. At present, I have some great ideas
I've been thinking about...Just ask.
Comments
"2 years after" (the article) !
I actually read it 2 years ago, even saved a print on paper at home ! :-)
The subject will remain topical for probably a long time !
I like to add a few thoughts about project conditions not really mentioned in the article.
(1) "Wheels" are indeed in the same competing attraction category as are observation platforms.
But more general, even the other types of passive (non self-propulsing...) sightseeing opportunities : hop-on-hop-off sightseeing busses (+- nobody is hopping on & off, all stay on the tour in one haul), sightseeing riverboats, lookout (turning) restaurants and other examples of combi-attractions, as the visit to the Brussels Atomium is: culminating as well in the observation deck level in the highest globe.
All those attractions have in common, that they offer
(a) a 'different view' of the city,
with (b) narratives,
and (c) without physical efforts to be delivered by the patrons.
[With one exception on the last constituent: climbing stairs to observation platforms that (still) do not have elevators.]
In general, however, the a-b-c "make" the attraction.
The Eiffel tower already had elevators in 1889. Wien already had a Grand wheel in 1897. The attraction category, together with it's dedicated tourist branding structure, is over one century-and-1/4 old.
I believe that the operating & branding knowledge you talk about, is very old.
It's about identity in the first place. But when political forces come in, it's sinking in a pothole, not because the knowledge in not available (it is), but simply because the politicians have a different agenda ! All think on very short term : 'being revoted, or not'...
(2) Tourist decisionmaking while visiting a city regarding going in the attraction of not, also shows roughly 3 levels :
(a) Shoestring budget mostly leads to looking AT the landmark attraction and getting pictures of it. The majority of London visitors has seen the London Eye and pictured it, without engaging. The ride cost is steep, while budgetting all vacation expenses over let's say, 3-5 days.
(b) Tourists with a moderate budget will quickly recognise there is more then one interesting sightseeing option in the city. The different attractions (London: Tour Busses, the Eye, River cruise...) are directly competing. A choice for one only is natural.
(c) Tourists with a comfort budget, will consider more then one of the options. The marketing machine is stimulating this (even accross the different ownerships) by offering combi-ticket plans. (E.G. London Eye sells Riverboat cruise as well in package).
>> The market for these attractons is very much socio-economic segmented. Intelligent YIELD MARKETING could help raise total revenue. Example : where there were off-peak hour low rates for the Eye, patrons from the (a) group could be attracted.
(----Continued----)
(3) An cultural-&-business-environment topic... :
MANY project initiative takers dream of wheels, but there exist a clear conflict of interest between business people and "heritage guards". The conflict exist in the simple fact that one cannot look over the skyline, without intruding sharply on the very same skyline by building the wheel. This forms a focal conflict matter in historical cities.
In a many modern high rise cities, this would not matter much (or at all) , but even there, the choice of best position from the operating position on quality of the VIEW, can still conflict with the urbanistic driven prerequisites, or bluntly, location land price.
CASE : Has the NY wheel an optimal location? I'm not shure...
The distance to the NY skyline is SO great, that the height difference the wheel would offer is only a FUTILE enhancement from the view one is getting from groundlevel. From St.George to start of Broadway = 5 mile. Raising 0.12 mile (project data) offers a extra view angle of ONLY 2.4% or a minuscule 1.5° slope ! Schoolkids can understand that calculus ! ... Bad WOM can be expected. WOM actually CAN be influenced, by refraining from fatal concept errors !
(The London eye offers an enhancement of 45°-20°... depending on the main heritage landmarks in view)
The money people would pay in NY, will allow them just a high view on the boats sailing just under Staten Island, but on the skyline of NY, it will be a self fooling illusion at best. Location Liberty state Park, would have been MASSIVELY different. Food for thought !!
(I would like to hear your opinion on this case, Anna, because I'm stating naked physical, visual observation facts! >> It will need Snake Oil type of marketing...)
(4) Storytelling, preshow, combined experiences...
Let's face it, again with the London Eye example, the public interest was lowering, and the reinvention of the Eye through the indoors experience Merlin installed after the takeover, gave it a new life.
The mere view opportunity is not always enough to make such a project feasible.
There is also a "dejà-vu" sentiment popping up, when more of the same spreads worldwide. Even if the view is different (and unique), the chances are there that the prospecting patron decides "he has already done such a thing".
(So, I aggree 100% with your call, Anna, about the lack of creativity in new developments. It does have an influence on attendance, and typically, it's only the local politic decisionmakers who are blind to this psy-attendance-lowering fact. Constructors, from their side, do not have any interest in operation revenue, they only want to sell a machine. Therfore, the creativity will not be pushed by the constructors either. It's a broad based concept developer (generalist, not specialist) who should forward creatively and point out the full set of strenghts and weaknesses.
Greets.
(Authour of this comment is architect and tourist.attraction concept developer by profession)