Volume 1, No. 18. October 5, 2001
Special WWA Edition
Slip-slidin'
success
Most
waterparks throughout North America reported increased attendance during the
2001 season, but one, Camelbeach in Tannersville, Pennsylvania, not only saw
a stellar year but could measure the park's success against a singular barometer:
it's own 38-year-old ski business.
The Camelback Ski Corporation expanded it's sparse summer offerings (a swimming
pool, small set of body slides and a dry alpine slide) in 1998 with a tube water
slide complex, lazy river and interactive kiddie area. The company annually
added to the waterpark, climaxing this year with the 31,000-square-foot (9,394-square-meter)
Kahuna Lagoon (LOOP,
June 29, 2001). With each addition, Camelbeach has seen attendance increases
and witnessed a 60 percent jump this year over 2000's numbers.
Such a jump the corporation never saw in the history of it's winter business.
Furthermore, the summer stats are closing in on those of winter. "I would guess
that prior to 1998, the numbers of people in attendance in summer were 16 to
18 percent, at the most, of our winter business," said Rich Wiseman, vice president
and general manager of Camelback Ski Corporation. "This last summer it was 70
percent of our winter business. So summer is gaining very rapidly."
Even more significantly, the 2000-01 winter was Camelback's best ever, said
Wiseman, who would not reveal exact attendance figures. Part of the resort's
winter upturn was perfect ski weather, but though the two clientele differ ("There's
no skill involved in going to a waterpark," Wiseman pointed out), Wiseman is
certain the rising summer traffic in 2000 also played a part in winter's good
numbers. "A lot of people that came in the summer saw what we had to offer in
the winter, and that helped us in marketing the ski side of the business." And
vice versa. This summer for the first time area resorts began booking rooms
for people specifically planning to visit Camelbeach. "That has to be carryover
from the previous year," Wiseman said.
In what may surprise many of their waterpark brethren, the Camelback corporate
folks find the summer business more resilient than their winter market, which
generally caters to weekend skiers from the New York City-Philadelphia metropolitan
corridor. "In the winter, if you have a day of rain or warm weather, skiers
stay away for a couple of days even though we have great snow-making equipment,"
Wiseman said. "In the summer, you can have a cloudy, rainy day, and the next
day it was like it never happened. We found it rewarding. I'm glad we got into
the waterpark business in 1998."
For a profile of Camelbeach Waterpark, see the October issue of Splash Magazine
(click here
for details).