The Problems and Their Countermeasures in the Development of

Chinese Theme Park

WANG Qian, SUN Qiang
Shandong Shenghan Finance and Trade Vocational College, P.R.China, 250316
WXS15949708855@163.com

Abstract: The increasing popularity of theme parks has become a tendency in the global tourism, with
booming development of tourism industry, the management and construction of the theme park become
more and more important. In China, especially in the late 1980’s, them parks industry has been
developing rapidly on a large scale. But at present, apart from a few theme parks, most of the theme
parks are now undergoing depression, after the early success when they first started business. Facing
this situation, this article discusses the problems existed in the development of theme park industry, and
offers some countermeasures.
：
Keywords Theme Park, Problem, Tourism, Countermeasure

1 Introduction
1.1The concept of theme park
Theme park as a new tourism destination is not only the extension but also the complementarily of the
tourism products. Theme parks of China developed from learning the developmental experiences of
overseas theme parks. As a new kind of travelling destination, the rapid development of theme parks has
aroused much attention from researchers since it appeared. Theme park is a new kind of recreation
production which combines entertainment and scenic spot together. The first theme parks are the
Disneyland built in Maduradam, Netherlands (1952) and Los Angeles, USA(1955.7). In the last decade,
some domestic scholars defined the concept of theme park in some relevant documents, and made some
theoretical study. Bao Jigang thinks that theme park is a space for entertainment, which has a certain
theme, and is created by people. Meanwhile, Dong Guanzhi believes that
theme park is a modern scenic spot built to satisfy the diversified entertainment need of tourists.

1.2 The overview of Chinese theme park

The development of Chinese theme park started in September, 1989, when the building of “Jinxiu
China” is complete in Shenzhen Special District. It was a milestone in the history of Chinese theme park
development, and was the first theme park in China that is comparable to foreign theme parks. Its
success lied in the tremendous attention it received, and it made a very good example. “Jinxiu China”
has made great contribution to the development of Chinese, and even global theme parks. Although the
history of Chinese theme parks is not very long, Chinese theme parks are developing very rapidly. And
they have become an important competitor of the global theme park market. Because of the technology
modernization, the economy globalization, the culture diversification, and the different needs of market,
the change of the forms of theme park is critical to the innovation and development of contemporary
theme park. What is more, the emergence of theme park greatly helps to change the simplification of
China’s traveling products, and it also optimizes the structure of China’s traveling investment. But
because of the lack of Macro-Control and scientific analysis, most of the Chinese theme parks are losing
money, or just earning enough to compensate for their cost.

2 The problems in the development of Chinese theme park

Nowadays, the scales of domestic theme parks are extending, and the investment is rising. However,
after the early success of a few theme parks, many theme parks rashly entered the market. This leads to
the repeat of the same theme, and inferior quality. And with higher aesthetic standards, people began to
lose interest in theme parks, which caused many difficulties for theme park investors. According to

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some statistics, more than 150,000,000,000 yuan which is invested in theme park are now earning less
than the cost in more than 2,500 different kinds of theme parks. At present, more than 70% of the theme
parks are losing money, 20% are earning just enough money to meet the cost, and only 10% are earning
money. More than 2/3 of the theme parks cannot earn enough money to cover the investment, and are
facing great difficulties.
In addition, there are some problems in the development of Chinese theme park, such as non-themed in
theme park, and that the choice of topic of theme park isn’t determined by market, the defects of
development are single means lacking innovation, the problem of investment is the main unknown.

Fig 1 The profit of the theme park in China

Many problems have been revealed, and they even jeopardized the healthy development of Chinese
theme parks. The problems include the following:

2.1 Lack of macro-control

The building of Chinese theme parks lacks uniform control from authority. It resulted in the saturation
of the market, and intensified competition. Some projects with low quality harms the overall
development of the theme park industry. If this kind of blind building is not stopped, it will lead to great
loss to tourism
.
2.2 Lack of specific theme
Chinese theme parks have many problems in choosing the theme. Firstly, there are many duplications of
the same theme. Some theme parks in China still try to imitate others when they are choosing the theme,
so many theme parks have similar themes. For example, there are more than 500 theme parks regarding
“Xi You Ji”, and there are more than 10 theme parks which have a theme of certain films in Jiangsu,
Shandong and Zhejiang. Secondly, many theme parks don’t have a theme. Some managers were not
familiar with theme parks in the past, and they considered theme parks as ordinary parks. As a result,
many theme parks are only a combination of inferior sculptures and buildings. Thirdly, many themes of
theme parks are not well-designed. In the early stage of theme park development, many theme parks
didn’t pay much attention in choosing the theme. They blindly catered to tourists’ taste. Therefore, there
aren’t many excellent theme parks in China.
.
2.3 Lack of innovation and update in traveling products
Most of the Chinese theme parks can be classified into two categories: landscape products and

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entertainment products. Many theme parks have a lot of items, but don’t have outstanding ones, and
they don’t have a theme. Plus, some theme parks have many scenic spots, but most of them are a
collection of scenery from other cities and countries, and have little to do with Chinese culture.
Therefore, we find those theme parks superficial and are lack of attractiveness. Because of the
deficiency of fund, some theme parks fail to provide tourists with the entertainment they are interested
in, and they don’t always update their services. As a result, tourists seldom visit those theme parks for a
second time.

2.4 Lack of effective management

There are several problems in the management of Chinese theme parks. Firstly, the ticket price is too
high, and is the main source of income for the theme parks. It prevents tourists from visiting the park
again. Some of the Chinese theme parks invested a large amount of money at first, or they want to prove
that they provide the first-class theme parks. Thus, they raise the ticket price so much that it costs much
more to visit a theme park than a scenic spot. For Chinese theme parks, the money they earn in ticket
sale occupies more than 80% of the total income. Money earned from restaurant industry and shopping
is very little. In comparison, for foreign theme parks, ticket sale only occupies 50%~60%. Restaurant
industry and shopping occupies about 30%. Unlike foreign theme parks, Chinese theme parks seldom
manage restaurants, entertainment and vacation places. Secondly, the life cycle is short. Just like other
traveling products, theme park has the characteristic of life cycle. Usually, theme parks receive a lot of
tourists in the first year. But the amount of tourists gradually decreases.

3 Countermeasures
3.1 Government administration and macro-control
On the one hand, the government needs to coordinate the relationship between traveling administration
department and other departments, like the department of garden and department of antiques. On the
other hand, we must enact some relevant laws, and provide some standards to evaluate theme parks of
different classes, so that it will be easier to administrate them. We must also control the number and
scale of theme parks, and the area of theme parks. Detailed plan for exploitation, technical design, and
market demonstration and administration methods should be required, and evaluated by experts. Only
those which are feasible should be approved.
.
3.2 Continuous innovation in themes
Professor Zhang Guangrei from The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences has summarized the
experiences accumulated by foreign theme parks, and suggests that “Theme is the soul of theme parks,
and innovation is the life of theme parks”. Therefore, it’s crucial for theme parks to innovate. If they
want to keep being vital, theme parks must attract tourist to visit for more than just once. To do this,
they need to innovate continuously. The world is changing everyday, and what the consumers like is
changing everyday. Thus, what theme parks provide should change along with the change of the market.
And theme parks ought to add new facilities every year, or design some new activities. So there will be
a park that is always being consummated.

3.3 Reasonable Ticket Price

Those large theme parks need large investment, and do not solely rely on ticket sale to earn money.
They also offer many different kinds of entertainment. According to statistics, 1/3 of Disneyland
(USA)’s income comes from tourists’ shopping and non-entertainment activities. We can create a
flexible ticket price system according to different groups of tourists and different seasons. For example,
we can have different ticket prices for the elders, children, adults and the disabled. And we can sell
monthly-ticket, yearly-ticket, holiday-ticket, which are cheaper than ordinary tickets, so that we can
satisfy different needs of different classes. Plus, we can provide special tickets in summer and winter
vacation for students. By using all those different methods, we will be able to attract more tourists, and
increase income.

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4 Conclusion

In a nutshell, theme parks will be a tendency for the tourism in the future. We need to maintain those
advantages and convert those disadvantages. In order to boost the development of Chinese tourism, we
ought to boost the development of Chinese theme parks, and make theme parks our big hitter, and an
important part of the newly-arisen industry, and make great contribution to Chinese tourism.

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