There have been changes to the management structure within Merlin Entertainments.

Fiona Eastwood will move from her role as Managing Director, Resort Theme Parks to become Managing Director of Midway leveraging her three years as Global Marketing Director for the Operating Group. Ian Crabbe, currently Divisional Director, Alton Towers Resort, will assume responsibility for Resort Theme Parks. With over 20 years’ experience at Merlin, Ian has recently overseen the management of both Alton Towers and Thorpe Park.

In addition, Merlin has created two new senior management roles to support the delivery of strategic initiatives and executional excellence across the three Operating Groups. Putnam Shin, currently Divisional Director, Midway Asia will be appointed Resort Development Director, and Hywel Mathias, Divisional Director, Midway London will become Midway Development Director.

Interesting that they've created new positions of Development Director at both Resort and Midway divisions. Although given the last company update saying they were considering Midway themed hotels, could Development Director really mean Hotel Creation Director?

lewis97 wrote:

Wait... did it? I thought that was just our April Fools...?

It did...

The operator of Legoland and Alton Towers is to step up the expansion of its theme parks into short-break destinations by adding accommodation and is considering themed hotels in cities where it operates “clusters” of attractions.

Yeah they are pretty well off Disney. Even the lower end Disney Hotels provide a smoother and better experience.

Whilst I somewhat expect the other parks to come up with their own versions of these types of passes, I get the feeling these are the parks trialing things more than Merlin.

Legoland are already doing far more ticket offerings than any of the other parks, with lifetime passes, tiered fastrack and a host of VIP experiences. It makes me think they're just set up to be more reactionary and have been able to quickly come up with something.

Thorpe have been offering the fastrack ticket for almost a year now, but outside of forum posts, very little has been done to publicise it - even to Thorpe's own staff. The terms and conditions are still essentially the response to an email I sent last year, and whilst they got a box of new cards printed for it this year, it just doesn't seem to be doing much at the moment.

Meanwhile Merlin Annual Pass are publicly stating a VIP style pass replacement may be coming, with their own 'register your interest' page. Although I wouldn't expect to see anything from this until next season.

In terms of costing, I suspect Merlin already have a very good idea of the marketable rate for this type of park wide premium pass, just from the length of the waiting list for the old VIP pass. I get the feeling that it was significantly long, so from a business perspective they clearly left money on the table. However, I agree that bolting together several park versions from a customer perspective wouldn't be overly great in feeling and I suspect would have far fewer takers than an all attraction pass. A significant part of the Merlin passes are their ability to be used in a lot of places, so a higher price can be somewhat justified with all the available options, which wouldn't be a factor for single site passes.

As reported by TowersTimes News this morning, Merlin Entertainments are to be taken over by an investment group whose interests include Lego. At a cost of £4.8bn, investors Kirkbi Invest hope to use their wealth of money and experience "to realise the company's potential to grow".

TowersTimes News will have more information later today.