With summer just a few days away, the season hasn’t really started for outdoor activities.
An observation which is even obvious in amusement parks.
In the North, their attendance has sometimes fallen by 10%, noted 8 p.m. on TF1.
At the entrance to Dennlys Park, it’s not the big day crowds, as we discover in the TF1 report at the top of this article. We come across a family there, who arrived on the scene after facing the rain and the cold. “It was for my daughter’s birthday.”smiles the mother, explaining that she “braved the storm”. Normally, on a Saturday like this, the park would be full, but today the attractions saw only half their usual attendance. It’s a weather forecast that shakes up the profession: more rain means fewer customers. Several shops inside the park are even closed this Saturday, four in total out of ten points of sale.
The rare visitors to the park are well covered: scarves and down jackets for almost everyone. We still meet a few brave people who try the “river splash”, and others who try to warm up in the mine train. But attendance figures are falling, and it’s the entire economy of amusement parks that is yo-yoing. “At points of sale, it’s approximately 7% less turnover, and at park entrances, less 11%.”notes general director Émilie Merlot, who concedes that “it hurts at the start of the season”. On site, the entrance price is 21 euros per adult, but the drop in attendance affects all French parks, including the largest.
