Theme Park Strategic Plan (Term Paper Sample)

Strategic Plan
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Introduction
Albion Theme Park hired Movers Consulting to give a guidance to its staff and board of directors on strategic planning process. The planning period covers the duration between 2010 to 2015, a plan that would go for five years. The plan was meant to provide future guidance to the park. Information got from the strategic plan heavily relied on the area community, the parks board of directors and other selected staff in their different work places. A follow up retreat was also organized wit almost all full-time employees. Agendas that govern different workshops inculcated park’s mission and vision statements, organizational performance reviews, discussions on intended outcomes, Leisure Vision household survey results, Park SWOT and identification of major issues that affect the business. Various reviews of household survey results were quite useful in making certain that alignment of strategy with resident needs.
The Parks Mission and vision are as follows:
Mission Statement
Our mission is to be world class recreational facilities in promoting diverse community-based theme park through provision of various programs, facilities and services together with natural space for full enjoyment to our customers.
Vision Statement
Our Mission is to address leisure needs to all our customers at all times
Part 1: External Analysis
Macro environment Analysis
Legal Factors
  Cattani (2011), claim that most theme parks in United Kingdom like any other firm in UK don have very low awareness of various legal boundaries that govern business. They do not know different intellectual rights of protection as indicated in different acts. For instance, a theme park in London in the southern provinces of UK provide different real-life types of Angry birds that have been adapted from famous mobile games. Though these activities are very widespread not only in UK but also in other parts of the world, reports claim that bird developers do not have any information about such activities. These behaviors are illegal as they spoil the relative copyrights.
Another risk is seen in the complex UK legal system. Legal drafting is characterized with such procedures as principle-like pronunciation, ambiguity and vagueness, broad-worded discretions, omissions, undefined terms and general catch-all clauses. Till date legal ambiguity is still widespread and poses a major challenge in new industries such as theme park industry in United Kingdom (Pettinger, 2004).
Competition
No single business operates without competitors. Competition in a business means that a business is profitable thus more entrepreneurs are willing to venture into it. Likewise, theme parks in United Kingdom face the same challenge. Several business persons have realized the profitability of the business and thus more and more investors are getting into the business. This means that initial customers have to be shared among the many parks (Jeyarathnam, 2008). Therefore, for a business to remain relevant in such a market setup, it must offer the best services.
Though this rivalry is a bit low to medium levels, the levels have raised in the last five years. Different parks have moved to different nations where there is no much competition thus win more customers. Since UK is a large nation with differentiated cultural backgrounds, different park developers have integrated culture into their parks to give more taste to their products and remain unique from other competitors. This has lessened competition as different customers would go to their best parks which offer the cultural tastes of their choice.
These competitions are very significant to Albion Theme Park. For the park to remain relevant and competitive in this market, a lot needs to be done. First, the management has to make certain that their product and services are the best. How customers are treated should be different to other parks with more emphasis on winning new customers and retain the old ones.
Industrial Analysis
Theme parks in United Kingdom face great competition from other theme parks as well as other types of recreational facilities. Such facilities include sports attractions, movie shows and vocational traveling. The business is also exposed to factors that influence leisure and recreational industries such as relatively high fuel prices, hostile economic conditions and changes in consumer behaviors. These factors sometimes lower down the amount of revenue from this kind of business. The principal competitive factors that affect successful establishment of theme parks include business location, business uniqueness, pricing and perceived quality of vehicles and rides in the park. Other factors include general cleanliness of the park and atmosphere in which it is built in. Quality of food offered and entertainment may also affect success of a theme park.
In London, theme parks are located at very strategic positions. They are a network of open spaces with majority of them being accessible by the public for a fee. They offer a wide range of recreational facilities ranging from ecological, recreational, cultural, heritage and resource management benefits to residents living in this area. Most private theme park combines facilities and features that are unique within UK. Regional parks are easily accessible through public transport while others offer transport services to their customers. They ensure that they are managed in the best way possible to maintain high level services for customer satisfaction.
Internal Analysis
Marketing Strategies
Theme parks are very immobile. Due to this reason, marketing efforts to attract new customers plays a very important role in assisting to raise more revenue to a business. Marketing also provide funding to be used to develop the park in the future. In order to achieve marketing goal, Albion has set up a dedicated marketing department comprising of more than 10 marketing officials who work closely with the board of governors to ensure that Albion spreads roots to different destinations in as far as marketing is concerned. In order to increase the park’s publicity, the park should start making advertisements on billboards, TV channels, radio, dailies and other media channels that offer advertisements
Human Resource Strategies
After successive scrutiny of different documents about the park and the meeting with the top management, it was clear that top management comprise of family members. This is not quite healthy for a business. Family members will tend to misuse powers on basis of ownership of the venture. It was also noted that wrangles emerged due to lack of documented hierarchy of leadership in the company. The two siblings must also be guided by rules anytime they make any decision in the business.
It is recommended that Albion should come up with a workforce comprising of a few family members and no-family employees. Additionally, top management should be made of qualified professionals in business management and not on the basis of family ties. This will make management much simpler and avoid recurrence of conflicts among the two siblings. The father should also delegate his tasks to an experienced manager to run the business on his behalf. The manager should be prudent in making decision and seek intervention from Mr. Tom in case of a crisis.
Operational Analysis
Running a big business may be a bit wanting. It may require a lot of resources and workforce for it to function properly. Expanding a venture means more responsibilities. Albion theme parks are no exception. The business has grown a big deal within the last few years thus more skills need to be employed if the business is to continue going up. All employees including managers should be given adequate training to lighten the work of directors. They should be trained how to work with harmony and understanding for a common good will of the business. There should be laid down mechanisms to be used to solve conflicts that might arise among workers (Woodside, 2008). Top management should closely work with junior staffs and listen to their problems. Customers should be treated well and served with dignity. They should be encouraged to visit the part more often through good service delivery.
Financial Analysis
A firm cannot run without finances. Albion Theme Park has managed to generate good finances within a short period of time. This is a good trend for any new business. With good management, the business is likely to register more financial benefits gained from new customers.
Financial crisis in management of Albion may be as a result of too much inclination of the business to family members. The two siblings might not care too much in case there is a financial crisis in the park like an outsider would do. They tend to be less serious with issues affecting the business since they feel like they own the business. No one is ready to take responsibilities that affect the business.
For the business to succeed, management has to come with several remedies to financial crisis facing the business. One of those remedies includes reduction of family involvement in the business affairs especially finances. Secondly, there should be rules that govern expenditu...