With the rapid development of local theme parks, a few problems in the management have gradually appeared. In this research, the author proposes to study about the current situation of Chinese domestic theme parks and find out solutions for their future development. In this proposal, the author will first give a brief introduction for the background of the research. Secondly, the author will give a detailed introduction to the research methodologies. It can simply be clarified as analysis, exemplification, comparison and contrast, induction, deduction and summary. The ways to collect the data include collection of questionnaires and interviews. In the end of the proposal, the author will give a prediction for the possible results. This prediction will lead the direction for the coming implementation of research.
The development of local theme park started later than those in the foreign countries. In 1989, “Splendid China” was completed and opened to the customers. It marked the beginning of the real sense of theme park. It was 30 years later than the Disneyland in California. However, the number of Chinese theme parks has increased rapidly in the past 20 years. Especially under the demonstration effect and temptation of huge economic benefits from the project of the Overseas Chinese Town, theme parks spring up like mushrooms and present a stairs type to continuously rise triennially. According to the incomplete statics from the related departments, there are more than 2500 theme parks,which is 40 times more than the total of American and Japanese ones. These theme parks mainly distribute at the developed areas, like the Yangtze River Delta, Chu Chiang Delta or around the Bohai Sea. However, only 10% of these theme parks really make profits and survive. A material has shown that, nowadays, 150 billion has been locked at the theme parks. Among them, 70% of the theme parks are at a loss, 20% of them under operation and only 10% are making profits（Chuanhui，2008）.
In a word, theme parks in our country start later, and its number increases too quickly. This will result poor management, low payoff and so on. Due tot the increase of the number, the types of theme parks are various. The construction of theme parks in our country has expanded gradually and the amount of investment has decreased. It also become more and more comprehensive. The opening of “Splendid China” invested by Shenzhen Overseas City marks that China has its own theme park of world-class. Influenced by the success of the “Splendid China”, many theme parks appear now and then. For example, the Beijing World Park, Suzhou Amusement Land, Hangzhou Songcheng, Hangzhou Amusement Land, Yunnan Nationalities Village, Millennium City Park and so on. They all have reached a high level. Now local theme parks have gradually become a fresh troops that can compete with the international theme parks in the marks（Li Zhi,2006）. They have helped to diverse the tourism products, promote the development of the tourism and meet the requirement of both native and foreign tourists.
The report as a who1e is characterized as qualitative study and the data of the thesis mainly come from some theories and indirect source. Before this project can be undertaken, related information should be collected. The author will make a market survey, and had personal interviews. The author will focus on the office ladies and gentlemen who are responsible for the management of the theme parks. They will also focus on the customers who enjoy visiting theme parks and those who rarely visit them. With the quantitative research methods in this research, the author will also interview other managers and customers of foreign theme parks and integrate all the suggestions. In total the author interviewed 50 holders of domestic theme parks, 50 customers of domestic theme parks, 50 holders of foreign theme parks, 50 customers of foreign theme parks and another 50 normal people who do not visit theme parks(Lian-di,,2009). What’s more, the author will also certain official staffs who are responsible for the construction of public entertainment equipments.
Firstly, we sent out 200 copies of questionnaires covering customers of domestic theme parks and imported theme parks, of which some of the copies may turn out to be invalid. In the first period, the author was in charge of sending out questionnaires and randomly distributed questionnaires online. After collecting the questionnaires, the author computed the data and worked out the percentage for each answer. Secondly, the author analyzed the answers of the questions and found out several problems. During the interview, the author recorded the conversation with sound recorder and noted down the main ideas in the form of e-document. Finally, the author searched for and collected information on the Internet to make more in-depth analysis (Hou-wei, 2011). The respondents are from Chinathe ratio of male and female will be 1:1. Their age groups will range from 5-30. The distribution of the questionnaire was conducted in the way of simple random sample; the respondents participated in this survey are selected randomly. Therefore the sample of this survey can be pretty representative. The aim of interview was to make further investigations on those problems reflected from questionnaire data analysis.The interviewees we selected from questionnaire subjects, among whom some are customers or managers of both domestic or imported theme parks. What’s more, some of them will be those officers who are in charge of theme parks and spend a lot of time to view news about them(Jiang Jie, 2012).
In this research,
Prediction for the Results
In this proposal, the author wants to focus study on two aspects. The first is about the customer experiences and the other aspect is about the marketing. In China, theme parks are various. However, only few of them are large enough. Many theme parks do not have enough power to implement large-scale development. They are lack of creativity, obvious themes and enriched innovations. Meanwhile, they are not good enough in their design, location, gardens, construction, lamps, sound effects, management, service, engineering and so on. This will result in poor customer experience. Comparing to the famous theme parks in the world, theme parks in China do not have special themes. They tend to follow those successful theme parks. This will result that, customers are hard to find special experiences even in different kind of theme parks. They will find that, what they visit is of almost the same style. Even for those successful designs, they will find their bottlenecks when they stop their innovation (Li Ke, 2013). However, in China there some theme parks make efforts to keep innovative. For example, the manager of Song Cheng said that, the spot is dead while the culture is alive. In every day, there are more than 15 kinds of acrobatic performance, 17 workshops and so on. This will make it keep its innovation. The author will also give a prediction for the possible results of the research. It can be classified as impersonality, unitary profit pattern, the unobvious cultural advantages, the lack of innovation and the short life span. First, it may be the reason that the construction of theme parks is lack of personalities. Before the construction of some theme parks, no enough market research has been done. Meanwhile, some designers are lack of related cultural deposits. So the theme parks designed by them do not have unique characteristics and cannot be recognized by people. Meanwhile, theme parks designed simply for entertainment cannot be recognized by people, thus gradually cleaned by the markets. Only those theme parks with the comprehensive functions can dominate the markets. Due to the success of some earlier built theme parks, a lot of people begin to follow it and they do not have their own characteristics. Second, it may due to its unitary profit pattern. Nowadays, many theme parks in China mainly make profits by their tickets, so the prices of tickets are higher. The products sold in the parks are always expensive since they have monopolized. This kind of profit pattern is unitary. More than 80% of profits come from the income of tickets. However, theme parks in foreign countries mainly make their profits from other items except for the tickets. Third, it may be because that the cultural advantages are not obvious enough. With the increase of people’s qualities, people take sightseeing tourism not only for entertainment and amusement, but also for exploring of the culture. With the increase of tourist projects, the source of customers becomes localized. Meanwhile, in some places with comprehensive source of customers, theme parks can be successful, the main three theme parks in Shenzhen are included (Jinglei, 2011). However, in some small-scale cities with small-scale, theme parks are hard to success. So when building theme parks, the ways to explore markets should also be found. Fourth, it may be resulted from its lacking of innovation. Lacking of innovation may be a major problem in the process of developing theme parks in China. Many theme parks tend to imitate other successful theme parks. They do not find their proper positions and have a lot of similarities. So they cannot attract customers very well. For example, with the success of “Shenzhen Window of the World”, the idea of “miniature landscape” has been widely used. Due to the similar themes, a lot of theme parks cannot attract customers and lead to its serious losses. Lastly, it may be caused by its short life span. There is a famous saying that, theme parks only have 3-5 life span. The completion of “Splendid China” marked the birth of modern Chinese native theme park. Its huge success has encouraged more and more companies to construct theme parks. In the past few years, there are more than 500 theme parks in China. However, since that most theme parks are constructed without knowing well about the market, few proper management strategies have been chose. In the following 10 years, the loss of theme parks has more than 90%. Theme park is one kind of special tourism resource. Its discovery and development are all very short. It’s usually that soon after its operation, it enters the period of consolidation. Due to the specialty of its life span, only a full understand of its characteristics can ensure the operation of it.
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