Balancing Local and Foreign Tourism

WEBVTT

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From our studios, this time in
Japan and Tampa. I was like,

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where was I. Oh, yes, Tokyo, where are you? You're

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Tokyo, Yeah, you're there.
We go Tokyo and you know this is

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Green Tech Ning Park. In thirty
I'm Philip and I'm joined by my co

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host Scott Swinson a Scott Swinson Creative
Development. This week, I thought we

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would start off with a story from
Japan because there are some things that I

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can talk about firsthand. So it's
a little bit of a continuation of our

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previous story about the town that was
blocking the view of Mount Fuji. But

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essentially the numbers just came in from
April and it says that Japan welcomed over

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three million visitors for a second straight
month in April, and arrivals in April

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were up fifty six percent from the
prior year and four percent higher than twenty

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nineteen. I think that's that's the
key number. Four percent higher than twenty

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nineteen and of course the nineteen Yeah, so it's really again like this whole

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thing we've been talking about for weeks, right, four percent isn't huge,

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but it is an increase over twenty
nineteen and twenty nineteen was you know,

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the year, so it it's definitely
modulating, and of course the yen is

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in a thirty four year low right
now, which has made Japan a bargain

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destination for foreign visitors, with a
rival set to blow pass the annual record

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of thirty one point nine million scene
in twenty nineteen, so hopefully this year

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they'll have set a new record from
twenty nineteen. While that's good news for

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Japan's economy, which shrank by five
percent by point five percent last quarter,

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it has caused friction with locals.
We already talked about some of those some

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of the friction in the previous story, but there's been just a lot of

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other random friction. And I think
it's something I'm here right now. I've

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been traveling around and just kind of
going to tourists and non tourist areas and

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studying people and engaging a lot with
everyone and talking to foreigners and you know

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whatnot on the ground reporting, I
guess is what you could call it,

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maybe, and so I can say
or vacation. You could call it a

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vacation if you really wanted to say
that to me. It's just it's really

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interesting because you can really feel that
there is this dichotomy happening right now where

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you know, essentially they're I think
in twenty nineteen, obviously, you know,

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there was a you know, we've
talked about all this, it's this

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pandemic echoes. You know, there
was a whole high of tourism, and

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then we talked about this as well. But all these places, you know,

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they had to shift over to being
only locals. If you remember all

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the stories were report on previously about
the co working from the Ferris Wheel and

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how initially they had opened up the
Gibli area, but you know it was

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only locals and it was so they
just pivoting, right, So everybody pivoted

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and now they're like they're trying to
pivot back, but it's not quite going

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that well. And it's it's this
weird dichotomy where and I think if you

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boil it down, it's they're trying
to decide is tourism meant for locals or

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is it meant for foreigners? And
the reason they have to kind of choose

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a lane is because of the weakness
of the end. So like if you're

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gonna make it for foreigners, then
the prices are going to be foreign prices,

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and but that's not sustainable for the
locals. And then you kind of

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get into this weird Japanese morality type
of thing, which is that you know,

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a lot of these places kind of
like serving the locals. Now they

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like, you know that, they
like it being a thing for locals to

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do. But if they, you
know, raise prices then to capture that

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margin for the foreigners, then the
locals aren't going to be able to afford

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it. And so I think where
they've landed right now is this weird middle

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ground where things that only foreigners use
are priced very high, well not like

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not high for like Los Angeles,
but like very high for Japan. But

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then things that the locals use are
priced like locally. And I want to

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try and give you some some things
because it doesn't make any sense and when

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you're here at thirty four year low, it's hard to put your brain around

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that. But some numbers to give
you. So I had a quick service

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dinner at Tokyo Disneyland, and it
was about seven dollars, and it's like

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the curry dinner, which I think
if I were to get that in Los

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Angeles is about nineteen dollars. So
that's so basically when you're at that conversion,

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you're looking at you know about seventy
you know, fifty to seventy percent

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off is what you should be expecting
that range. But then you know,

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getting an uber which or a taxi
is i'd say the same price, if

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not more. And hotel rooms are
insane. You know you I can't I

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could not find a hotel room this
this midweek, you know, this like

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Tuesday, when say Thursday for less
than three hundred and eighty US dollars a

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night anywhere, you know, even
not even close to Disney, like in

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anywhere in the in the prefectures.
So you know, but buying food and

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you know the subway is like a
dollar to get across the city. I

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mean, there's this is weird dichotomy
where this all this stuff and the other

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few things I've noticed is this dichotomy. I think the main thing is the

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money, but it's also like the
I don't know how to explain, like

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the experience where there's a lot less
English than there was when I was here

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in twenty nineteen, you know,
even yeah really and it's yeah, it's

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been five years, it's been five
years since you know, they were since

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they were catering to us tourism.
So yeah, that makes that actually makes

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total sense to me. It's sort
of like when you talk to when you

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talk to look at it this way. There's been an entire generation of high

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school students who did not have the
influence of English language, so they're now

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in the workforce, or even university
students. They're now in the workforce,

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and so of course there's been a
change of the amount of English spoken.

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You know, it's interesting as you
were talking about this, because we were

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talking a little bit before we started
recording, but as you're just describing this

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now, it takes me back a
long time to when I was visiting the

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Soviet Union the year before the Soviet
Union split up, because they were trying

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to do the same thing. They
were trying to find ways to cater both

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to the locals and to the tourists. And what they actually did is they

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created complete different subsets of tourisms.
So for example, there were hotels that

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only locals, only locals could only
residents of the Soviet Union could stay in,

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and they were very, very inexpensive, and they catered to the lifestyle

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of those people who lived in the
USSR. Then there was sort of that

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interim version, which is where we
were lucky enough to stay quite honestly,

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and they were you could stay there
if you were a guest of the state

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or if you were an international student. So it was kind of that mid

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range, and then there was the
tourist range, which was the absolute highest.

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So that was how they did it. And I'm not saying this is

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what Japan is going to do or
even should do, but there are ways,

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there are ways around this, because
I think you're absolutely right, Philip,

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the concept of how do we not
lose the local tourist local tourism base

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that we've built over the last five
years, and and how do we continue

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to encourage international tourism because you know, you need that. All of the

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post crisis leadership mentality is keep parallel
paths going so that who knows what's going

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to happen in the future, so
you've got to you got to keep both

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going. And so maybe you know, maybe that is what's going to end

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up happening, is that there are
things that are exclusively for outside tourist.

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I mean, let me let me
give you another weird example. There were

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things. And this is so keep
in mind what Soviet Union broke up in

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ninety ninety one something like that.
It was it was it was late late

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eighties, early nineties when I was
there, and I think it was ninety

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anyway, there were certain items that
you could not even purchase legally with rubles.

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That you couldn't purchase with the with
the local currency. You had to

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buy them with with what was called
hard currency or currency from outside the country.

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So you know, that's pretty extreme, and I think there'd be probably

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some pushback in Japan, but but
there are certainly ways to do that.

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If that is indeed your desire to
keep the locals continuing to travel and continue

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to purchase things, but also catering
to and saving things like again Russia or

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so Union, saving things like caviar
vodka. You could not buy either of

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those things with rubles. Interesting.
That's fascinating. I think that is related.

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Kind of the last thing I was
going to mention on this that I

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actually honestly really had no idea.
I just you know, Pep. I

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am a planner normally, but in
this case, I really just showed up

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in Japan and then figured out what
I was going to do no spreadsheetil.

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I just kind of like I was
like, here we are, and I

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was like, oh, my hotel's
in the red light district. That's okay,

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it's okay, it's all right.
It's Japan. What's going to happen,

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but especially with me? But we
so let's go say. Yeah,

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they had this program they're running right
now. It's sort of similar to that

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where essentially foreign tourists can shop tax
free at a lot of places. You

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know, it used to just be
like there's like duty free you would get

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the airport or whatever. I mean. Now it's like most of the main

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department stores, the shopping districts,
I mean all sorts, like imagine most

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malls and even thrift stores. I
went to a thrift store and got some

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stuff there, and they offered a
tax free version. And what they do

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is they like they scan your passport
and they enter it into this electronic tracking

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system so it tracks all of the
tax and there's this. Of course I

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read up on all of it because
I'm crazy like that, but there's a

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lot of rules into it. You
know, you have to have your passport

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staff that has to have like dates
in it, and like it has to

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be meant for tourists showing up and
wearing and technically the officers can ask you

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to produce the items, so it
has to be something you keep in your

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carry on or you're wearing on you
when you are going through customs, so

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you know you're not getting multiple of
them. But yeah, it's all tracked

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digitally via your passport and they scan
it when you exit. And of course

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you know you might still have to
pay duties on it if you're coming into

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the US or going to another country
because it's different. But essentially that knocks

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an extra ten percent off. So
it's it's like there's really incentivizing shopping at

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these places, you know, and
for no tax at all on them.

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And that's I mean even ten percent. Like I mean earlier, I was

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saying that I was wandering around the
some of the big shopping areas in Ginza,

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and I was saying that like the
import brands like the you know,

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Prodi and Dulshenkbana and Balanty, know, like there're the same prices that you

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would pay in Los Angeles, except
I don't got to pay tax on them.

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So even at ten percent, if
it's a two thousand dollars item.

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I mean that is that it's a
chunk you know, that might sway you

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potentially in that way. But then
if you bought anything local Japanese, you

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know, it's much cheaper because it's
the Japanese for you know, a Japanese

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brand, but you're still not being
taxes on that, so it's even cheaper.

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So imagine you're getting like sixty percent
off of a thing. So uh

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yeah, so similar to that.
Very interesting. But I think my point

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overall with this is exactly what what
you were leaning at, Scott, which

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is where where do we find that
line? And it reminds me too of

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it's always good. I think it's
always good for us to have these things

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flipped on us because when I was
wandering around trying to trying to get hues

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in Japanese sizes, trying to get
like like a Japanese men's wear, and

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I have no idea what the one, two, three means. I don't

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know what that means. What's like, what's the two? But uh and

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nobody spoke any you know, English, and I'm trying to try signs with

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my phone and speaking a little bit
of Japanese but just enough to try and

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not be offensive. It reminded me
that as you knows as difficult that as

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it is where you know, you're
in these major shopping districts and there's no

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English, and you're like, wow, there's no anything in America. So

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like if if again it's to say, if we flip it on its head

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and be like, oh, you
know, if I were somebody who really

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didn't speak English very well coming to
America and we're trying to attract all these

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foreign visitors, like you know what, like at least the signs at Tokyo

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Disney and around the places are it
are bilingual. A lot of them are

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bilingual. You know, maybe the
ride isn't bilingual, but at least I

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can you know, navigate around like
you can't do that. Most No,

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there's no bilinguals. When's the last
time youve seen a bilingual sign in America?

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Right? Well? And it's interesting
because in traveling, traveling in general,

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they will do bilingual as. And
I've seen this happened in the UAE,

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I've seen this happen in Saudi.
I've seen this happen in Germany.

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I've seen this happen in Rome.
I've seen this it's it's the signs are

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in native language and English, because
English seems to be that that homogenizing factor

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in many many places is it may
not be necessarily catering directly to either folks

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from the UK or from the US, although it is a way. Like

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for example, people I was traveling
with, they were from Brazil. They

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spoke English, and therefore, you
know, they were able to communicate when

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we were in these other countries because
they may not have spoken Arabic, but

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they spoke English and the signs were
in English. The other thing that you

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mentioned too, that I think is
really interesting is trying to sort of create

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these tourism districts, these areas where
and that's where you know, you really

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and we don't really have those as
much in the in the US. I

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mean, the closest thing we have
is like Walt Disney World Resort or stuff

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like that. We don't have them
at all. I was taking in California.

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We don't really have it at all. You know, it's not a

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And I was also thinking again about
I was just thinking about, like,

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our infrastructure is really not set up
at all for your national tours. I

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don't know why they put up with
Americans, but or America at all.

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Well, and it's interesting. But
again, as I as I said,

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there, in most of the travel
I've done, and to places that you

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wouldn't think English would necessarily be that
common a language like in Riod very common.

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I mean, everybody spoke enough English
that they could even the even the

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uber drivers spoke enough English that they
could get me where I needed to go

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and I could ask basic questions.
So but but I think that the idea

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of if they're able to sort of
create the entertainment area, district, island,

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whatever, then they can focus their
efforts there. Yeah, you know,

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I think creating the district and making
it the district easily accessible the creature

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comfort thing you talk about. You
know, I keep thinking about the you

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know, not only do we not
have a district like that. You know,

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at most places, the closest would
be Walt Disney World. But there's

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not like a train that connects MCO
to Walt this, you know, and

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there's no I mean even Lax.
I've always heard this from people, and

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I've always brushed it off. But
Lex is a nightmare. If I didn't

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speak English and I landed at Lax, I have no idea what I would

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do. I would be completely,
you know, befuddled because there's no public

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transit, and that's the thing,
you know, I can get on trains

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here and at least there's a map, and he's I can find an English

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version of the map and navigate around
or this. I was lost at Tokyo

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station. This really small, like
eight year old Japanese boy helped me and

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it was the cutest thing in the
world. I was like, I can't

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find this line. He was like, it's over there. I was like,

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oh my god, thank you.
But you know that that kind of

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stuff, it's it's you can't do
that. I mean, you can't,

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you know you can't. So anyway, the district thing, I think is

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to your point, that's a really
here. I think the district would be

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the place where Disney is where essentially
what they've done is you can take the

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public transit from any airport and you
can take it to the you know,

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the designated Mahama stop, and then
you that stop is like up here,

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and then you walk down a little
bit and then you enter into the resort

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line, which still accepts the same
subway passes, so you can use the

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Saint Pass. But then the resort
line runs you all the way around like

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the bubble, I would say,
And the English in this bubble is much

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much higher than even in the shopping
district. And you can tell, like

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you can tell it's like, oh, you know, they kind of have

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you know, like when I went
to check in. I checked in at

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the Sheraton and it was the most
English I've heard the whole time. You

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know, when you're checking in,
like, oh, welcome this one,

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and everything was you know, was
yeah. I mean, you almost don't

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notice it until it's not there.
I think when you're like trying to check

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it and I don't know, well, and again it's it's no different.

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It's no different than what they're trying
to build an abudab on Yes Island.

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I mean, Yes Island is designed
to be their entertainment district, their entertainment

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island, and you know you can
get there with now. I will say,

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my experience was English was pretty much
spoken to some degree everywhere. But

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it's because also they are they're they're
working very very hard to be more of

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an international I think they would be
right for for them, right for for

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well, I wouldn't think you want
to you wouldn't you wouldn't you want to

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have English? And surprisingly it's it's
English. It's it's English, Mandarin,

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Uh, Russian, Uh, those
are and and and of course Arabic.

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Those are the Those are the ones
that are most that I experienced, were

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most. But one of the things
that they're working on right now is they

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don't have the monorail system like they
do in Japan. So what they're trying

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to do with Yes Island is they
are creating these autonomous vehicles, both for

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buses and for cabs. They can
get you all around the island. And

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I've heard that they've also looked into
like the the like Disney Skyliner in Orlando

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that has not been quite as openly
received. But when I was there last

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year, they were doing the beta
testing on all of the autonomous vehicles and

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the and the bus system was even
the driver the bus system with drivers was

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incredibly inexpensive, and ubers were everywhere. So they were really doing everything they

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could to foster that that comfort of
making it easy for the and I'm going

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to do a gross stereotype here,
but for the terrified American they made it

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as easy as possible to get around
Yas Island, yep. And they're continuing

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to grow on that. That transportation
element is huge. But I think that

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you know, when you say you're
trying to find that balance between local tourism

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and international tourism, I think that
by creating a tourist area which is you

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know, as you say, Disney
and the surrounding, it's in Orlando,

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it's the Walt Disney World and now
the Universal Complex and I Drive and all

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that. So it's just it's been
growing and growing and growing. But then

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there are parts, you know,
people don't realize. There are parts of

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Orlando that are neighborhoods are just you
know, little nineteen twenties bungalows. So

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I think that that is a great, a great opportunity for them to continue

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to expand both local and international tourism
by recognized, by creating for the locals,

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here's where we're going to do tourism, and we will make sure that

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we can somehow accommodate both in some
way or another. I think we need

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to move on. I totally we
went on sidetrack with that, but I

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think we basically covered the second story
which we had, which was that there

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is a little bit of a I
think emerging going on in that area,

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and it sounds like it's the Saudi
Yep, yep, And it sounds like

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here from Riad. The story from
the Arab News is that the leisure firm

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Sodding Entertainment Ventures is set to be
incorporated into Kiddia Investment Company and affiliate of

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the Kingdom's Sovereign Wealth Fund, and
the integration of the firm also in A

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seven another subsidiary of the Public Investment
Fund, will strengthen the objectives advancing the

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entertainment concept, nurturing local talents and
capabilities, and improving the quality of life

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across Kingdom. So it sounds to
me like, I mean, this is

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a lot of money and a lot
of things solding into each other. But

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it seems like it's exactly what we
just covered in that they want to bring

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it all together. So they can
bring it all they can make a little

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you know, bubble. Basically,
absolutely, Kadea Kadea will be the as

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island for for Souding and and they
want to. They're they're investing heavy and

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hard, and they they've actually gone
so far as to say they have a

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deadline where they want to be the
the vacation capital really, so they're they're

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continuing to grow, they're continuing to
educate, they're doing it in a very

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smart way. They're continuing to invest
money into it because they you know,

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right now they have very deep oil
money pockets, and uh, they're they're

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trying to invest not only the money, but also they're also investing in a

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great deal of education and training.
So that will be a really cool element

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to this, so that they can
deal with the multi language issues, so

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that they're prepared for locals versus outside. It's uh there, and they're learning

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from everyone, you know, they
they are they the folks from from Jia

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and and the Kadea investment company and
seven are in all of the major areas

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around the world that have theme parks
and bring in tourism, and they're learning

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from everyone. So yeah, it's
it sounds like a good model and it's

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something that that perhaps could they could
dive even a little bit deeper into in

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Tokyo to help with the with the
issues there. Well, someone who someone

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else and someone in the US who
is having issues is United Parks. Let's

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see. Well, actually, first
United Parks, I mean I get to

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this but the people having real issues
this theater are Fair and six Flags.

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But United Parks so far has been
doing pretty well. What we'll link to

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this so you can read more about
it. We want to go pretty quick

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on this story. But essentially,
essentially they're even is up a nine point

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three percent increase for United Parks in
there adjusted EBITA. And specifically, what

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the CEO said is while attendance in
the quarter benefited from a positive counter shift

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of where the Easter holidays benefit,
was almost entirely offset by unusually wet and

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cold weather during the quarter, particularly
on certain peak attendance days and mainly in

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our Florida parks, which is funny
because everyone seems to be digging on the

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climate issues in Florida and I'm like, well, then do something about it

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in the park in park cap revenue
including the impact of certain one time revenue

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increase four percent, blah blah blah. Essentially, they had a pretty good

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run, and they did mention that
a big factor in this is, of

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course the world dab dabi, which
in which we were just talking about,

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and I think they seem again like
we were talking about, kind of being

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like you know this, they receive
some one time payments from this, but

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they expect that investment to you know, develop over time. And in the

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meantime there you their other parks are
doing I guess better than anticipated. It

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seemed like the Ibida was better than
they anticipated, even aside the weather issues.

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So I guess we'll see. They
had a lot of openings, you

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know, light up. The United
Parks has been have lining up a lot

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of openings for the summer. But
you know, again, the weather could

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all these parks could continue to haunt
them because a lot of their openings are

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in the Florida Parks well. And
the other thing to keep in mind too

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is United Parks. You know,
main main brand right now is still SeaWorld,

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and SeaWorld is celebrating at sixtieth anniversary
this year, so which is actually

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the sixtieth anniversary of the opening of
the San Diego park, but it is

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it is sixty years of SeaWorld,
and that is they're doing a lot of

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00:25:52.000 --> 00:25:56.119
investment in that. There new new
rides, new attractions, new parades,

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new festivals, and they're what they're
trying to do is they're trying to roll

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them out in multiple parks. But
they're like they'll have slightly different names,

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slightly different designs. But like this
past week I was in I was in

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San Antonio and their new water ride
there is Catapult Falls, which is very

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similar to Infinity Falls, which is
very you know, so they're they're doing

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it. They're doing it in a
large corporate way, but they are still

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continuing to invest in the parks and
and I think that I think I'm excited

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to see if they're starting to see
a little turnaround here because of that investment.

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I know the weather is a challenge, but at the same time,

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I hope that by they see they
see a positive reaction to their investments.

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Yep, let's I actually I want
to talk about the differences here, but

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just really quick to set the stage. Cedar Fair and six Flags are struggling.

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The Q one was not great for
them. Both chains had increases in

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00:27:00.480 --> 00:27:04.759
their net losses. So six Claggs
saw an eighteen percent increase in net loss

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00:27:04.799 --> 00:27:10.200
and Cedar Fara saw a net loss
of one hundred and thirty three million.

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And they they just said that you
know that they're excited about the merger and

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that they see it going forward,
and they've complied with the DJ's requests and

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blah blah blah. But all that
being said, the Camp Snoopy reopening it

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00:27:25.000 --> 00:27:29.599
at Knoxberry Farm was delayed. And
not only was it delayed, but I

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00:27:29.640 --> 00:27:32.119
think, I'm Scott, you might
have seen too, but some of the

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people we know that have worked on
the projects have kind of shared openly that

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00:27:36.799 --> 00:27:41.839
a lot of the design basically was
evied out and that it's you know,

359
00:27:41.880 --> 00:27:44.079
not only is it construction delays,
but it's not gonna be what it was

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like promised to be, and that
you know, it's very upsetting and for

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all the designers on it. So
I don't know, I mean, these

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are kind of like mixed signals.
I'm kind of like, if you put

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two struggling park chains together, does
that make them not struggle? Because I

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don't know. I mean, I
don't know how far economies are scared are

365
00:28:00.319 --> 00:28:03.079
going to take, you, you
know, to reduce that much of a

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00:28:03.079 --> 00:28:07.799
shortfall. But you know, one
hundred and thirteen million is more than they're

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00:28:07.799 --> 00:28:11.480
going to say by cutting the county
department down. But but I don't know,

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Scott, tell me, what are
what are the parks doing? Differently?

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Like why is it that United Parks
is doing good and these parks are

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not doing good. Well, I
think it's that I you know, I

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00:28:26.000 --> 00:28:30.200
think the challenge is six Let's let's
just focus on six Flags for a minute.

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Six Flags has had some rather significant
ups and downs over the last couple

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decades. Really they did. They
went through this massive expansion where they pretty

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much bought up any park that even
looked like it was for sale, and

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00:28:45.680 --> 00:28:49.079
they expanded way too quickly and then
didn't have the infrastructure or the financial pockets

376
00:28:49.079 --> 00:28:52.799
to actually bring these parks up to
speed, so then they had to sell

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00:28:52.839 --> 00:28:57.880
them off. I know. I
mean a specific example is Geaga Lake in

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you know, you know, they
bought Jiaga Lake. It became a six

379
00:29:02.279 --> 00:29:04.559
Flags property, and this was years
ago. It became a six Flags property

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00:29:04.960 --> 00:29:11.359
before it became six Flags Jaga Lake
before it became condos. Because then they

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00:29:11.359 --> 00:29:14.319
had to sell off the land and
they just they so they blew up and

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00:29:14.559 --> 00:29:18.000
shrunk back down. And that's just
not a good that's not a good business

383
00:29:18.000 --> 00:29:22.400
practice. It just it was a
oh crap. We made the wrong decision

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00:29:22.599 --> 00:29:26.759
with them coming together. You know, we had talked about this in a

385
00:29:26.799 --> 00:29:29.640
previous episode where we kind of hope
that they would take the best practices of

386
00:29:29.680 --> 00:29:33.839
each and put them together to create
something new. If you want my personal

387
00:29:33.880 --> 00:29:38.119
opinion, I think they're hanging on
to until something happens in Kadea where there's

388
00:29:38.160 --> 00:29:41.680
going to be a gigantic six Flags
park and it will get that infusion of

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00:29:42.279 --> 00:29:49.920
interest and UH and worldwide media that
happened with the SeaWorld parks when when Abu

390
00:29:51.000 --> 00:29:55.519
Dabi opened. So I think that
you know whether whether or not they will

391
00:29:55.519 --> 00:30:00.559
see all of the revenue that will
be generated by the Kadea park. They

392
00:30:00.599 --> 00:30:03.240
won't because it's it's a joint venture, it's a you know, it's owned.

393
00:30:03.279 --> 00:30:06.960
It's actually probably owned by someone else. I don't know the details on

394
00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:11.720
that particular on that particular agreement,
but it will bring certainly new attention to

395
00:30:12.240 --> 00:30:18.599
the six Flags brand and and I
think that's why they're going to continue to

396
00:30:18.680 --> 00:30:22.759
probably lead with the six Flags brand
and not necessarily the Cedar Fair brand,

397
00:30:22.759 --> 00:30:29.400
which will eventually, I would imagine
go away completely. So we'll see.

398
00:30:29.559 --> 00:30:32.079
I think that you know, to
your point, you've got a struggling park,

399
00:30:32.079 --> 00:30:33.279
and you've got a struggling park,
and when you put a struggling chain

400
00:30:33.279 --> 00:30:36.160
in a struggling chain, when you
put them together, do you have a

401
00:30:36.359 --> 00:30:44.440
more struggling chain. Possibly, but
hopefully hopefully they're looking, you know,

402
00:30:45.039 --> 00:30:49.920
way down the road here, so
that when they get an influx of attention,

403
00:30:51.480 --> 00:30:55.400
that the that the US parks will
will feel a little bit of a

404
00:30:55.400 --> 00:31:00.000
boost. And because I know people
who work for both companies now the one

405
00:31:00.000 --> 00:31:07.279
company, I really hope that they
are able to utilize the teams that they

406
00:31:07.319 --> 00:31:11.559
have and their strengths, because the
six Flag strengths and the Cedar Fair strengths

407
00:31:11.559 --> 00:31:15.599
are not the same, and I'm
hoping that they will find a way to

408
00:31:15.640 --> 00:31:21.440
continue to elevate the strengths of both
properties or both chains, and so they

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00:31:21.480 --> 00:31:25.160
can kind of cancel out some of
the things that have made them less successful

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00:31:25.559 --> 00:31:27.279
in the past. So I hope
they keep their eye on the future.

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00:31:27.799 --> 00:31:30.519
We're going to have to keep our
eye on the future because we are out

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00:31:30.519 --> 00:31:36.400
of time, so looking towards the
future. We hope that you will join

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00:31:36.480 --> 00:31:40.000
us again next week for Green Tag
Theme Park. In thirty Philip will still

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00:31:40.000 --> 00:31:42.359
be traveling and I'll be somewhere.
I don't even know where I am the

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00:31:42.400 --> 00:31:47.119
next time we record, but anyway, on behalf of Philip Bernandez with Gantum

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00:31:47.160 --> 00:31:49.599
Lighting and the Hunted Attraction Network,
and myself Scott Swinson with Scott Swinzon Creative

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00:31:49.640 --> 00:31:53.519
Development. This is green tagged theme
park in thirty and we will see you

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00:31:53.559 --> 00:31:56.440
and all of your friends next week