Village Solutions

Fun parks give city the miss

Reprinted from The Telegraph

Calcutta has the potential to house 10 amusement parks, but has only two such crowd-pullers — Nicco Park and Aquatica. While South India boasts of 30-35 fun parks, the eastern region has just seven of the 120 in the country.

This was the talking point at a meet organised by the Indian Association of Amusement Parks and Industries on Saturday in Nicco Park.

“The process (of setting up amusement parks) was speeded up in the south because of government support,” said N.D. Rana, the president of the association, formed 13 years ago to promote the industry. 

“South India gained the tourists Kashmir lost and states like Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Kerala pulled out all stops to woo amusement park promoters,” Rana added.

The association members were, however, upbeat about the industry’s prospects in the east. “You have a good population mix and beautiful space available,” said Rana. But the government has to lease out land to park promoters at affordable rates, he added.

C.L. Chamaria, the chairman of the association in the east pointed to the potential in other cities in the region. “Places like Agartala and Siliguri are coming up,” he said.

On Saturday, the association announced its 10th Amusement Expo 2010. The business-to-business event aimed at promoting trade and networking will be held from March 18 to 20 in Mumbai. “A consultant from Disney will speak on safety measures at the expo,” said a member of the association.

The amusement park industry clocks a turnover of Rs 2,000 crore in India and is growing at 10-15 per cent annually. It generates 200 to 300 jobs per park, the member added.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 28th, 2009 at 4:50 pm and is filed under Industry News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.