What Unique Qualities Does Universal Studio Have Tourism Essay

The main objectives of writing the report are to do a case study on how the Universal Studio is able to attract the locals and tourists into investing in the place. The report would cover why universal studio is able to do so with its unique features. How it is better than its competitor (Escape Theme Park) or how it is in a way inferior to this competitor will be analysed using the SWOT analysis. Is there a raise in tourism in Singapore due to the universal studio.

Understanding how universal studio was established and its importance in bringing revenue to Singapore and helping to raise the number of tourism attractions in Singapore.

The report would be based on my first hand observation of how the universal studio works and became success. I made a visit to universal studio trip myself and saw it from the perspective of a tourist and a local. I had to decide why the place was worth going to and I did it by going there. I approached my friends who had been there for their reviews regarding universal studio and how they felt about the place to get a better understanding besides my own view or doing a survey on how people feel about universal studio. I also interviewed my friend who is working there to have a clearer picture of universal studio and what it does, and their daily routine of maintaining the flow of the people.

What is Universal Studio Singapore?

Universal Studio is a theme park built to raise tourism in Singapore. The theme park is located at Sentosa within Resort World Sentosa. Genting Group won the bid to build a second integrated resort in Singapore. On 19 April 2007 the building the Resort World Sentosa (RWS ) commenced. The park was opened to the public on 18 March 2010. The universal studio brings about lots of wonderful attractions including 24 movies – themed rides and attractions, new rides and shows based on blockbuster hits. It is both a locally and tourist enticing place for Singapore to build upon.

The park was also opened for sneak preview during the Chinese New Year period to promote and let people know about the place to spend for special occasion and sightseeing purposes.

History of Universal studio

The successful bid on Genting group in building RWS making Singapore the second Universal Studio Theme Park opened in Asia and first in Southeast Asia.

After the official opening, some of the attractions would be opening later at a different timing due to unfinished construction and safety of the people. The largest roller coaster has been hailed due to the safety and problems the theme park had encountered when the ride was opened.

Achievements of universal studio

Universal Studio has brought some attractions and rides which are available in other countries and brought it to Singapore for the locals and out tourists.. Each ticket would cost about 62 dollars for weekdays and 72 dollars for weekends for adult passes. With such a costly ticket it will certainly bring more income to Singapore. The place consists of 30 restaurants inclusive of food push carts and 20 unique retail stores located all over the park. 7 zones of movie themed worlds and 22 attractions have been designed.

Visitors are not only able to access the Universal Studio, they can venture into Sentosa Island which is also a tourist attraction. It has brought the best movie – themed attractions within the seven zones to life, attracting locals and tourists into a dazzling place packed with fantasy for both children and adults, something they have been wishing for.

Aims of Universal Studio

It has successfully brought Singapore a unique theme park attracting lots of tourist and locals to visit it. Their aims for market are to bring tourism and economical of Singapore to a greater heights. It is to maintain quality service and entertainment to those who visited it for lasting memories. Hoping they would be back to visit the place again on their next trip back to Singapore.

What is so unique about Universal studio?

The unique points about Universal Studio is the 7 zones of movie themed world which has brought movies characters alive giving visitors memorable visit and trip making to money paid worthwhile.

The 7 zones of themed world consist of The Lost World, Far Far Away, Madagascar, Ancient Egypt, Sci – Fi City, Hollywood and New York. All these places are built upon the movies themed and blockbuster hits. The place constructed is based on the movies featuring characters appearances, shopping and dining areas bringing the movie to life.

Firstly, The Lost World is divided into two areas Jurassic Park and Waterworld. Featuring both two movie blockbuster hits which are popular among the people. The Lost World helps people to get to know more about dinosaurs and seeing the movies coming alive before their eyes. There are rides featuring the perspective of dinosaurs and how it is like to be surrounded with dinosaurs. Rides which consist of the bird eye view of the place, and some thrilling river raft ride ensuring us to be soaking wet at the of the ride. Waterworld is a water based attractions where we can get to see stunts, amazing explosion live in the water show.

Far Far Away Land is a movie themed place inspired by dreamwork animations mainly featuring Shrek and the rich fairy tales life. Knowing the characters that living within the fairy tale walls coming to life. Shrek house was being build and there is Shrek 4D featuring a short and realistic movie where we can actually feel the action right from the seat in their short fairy tale adventure. Junior roller coaster is available to for riding too.

Madagascar is also one of the dreamwork animation inspired theme zones where it features the dense tropical filled with wonderful characters of Madagascar in the movies. There is a merry go round where we can ride it to be feel like surrounding the Madagascar character and once again be like a child. Unfortunately not all the rides is opened there which will bring people to goes back next time when it is opened so as not to miss any wonderful attractions there.

Ancient Egypt is a place featuring ancient pyramids and archaeologist site appearing in movies like the mummy similar to it. Roller coaster is the most exciting rides in the universal studio aside from the huge roller coaster which is not functioning till further notice. It allows us to feel the fire and actually knowing more of ancient pyramids.

Sci – Fi City is a place featuring the modern place of people where future place would look like base on our high technology nowadays. It is also where the two major roller coasters situated at. It is just basically for sightseeing purposes since most of the attractions are closed due to safety issues.

Hollywood is a themed place which features the Hollywood boulevard where dynamic architecture, palm trees and walk of the fame. It features shows like where universal monsters in a rock and roll musical performances bring joy to visitors. It is also the place where most of the shopping can be done. Many iconic Hollywood boulevard.

New York is a place where the sidewalks and classic landmarks are being featured. There are facade set of movie scenes for real time movie productions. Where there are attractions that showed us how the movie is being produced and how tedious the actual filming would be bringing a spectacular effect for the movie screen.

There would also be themed hotels available to cater the needs of people and their choice of preference. Thus, with the themed hotels and 7 zones of attractions made up of Universal Studio make it uniquely special and the only theme park found in Singapore.

Difficulties faced

Due to the technical problems, some might feel that the park is not up to expectations. The major rides are not operational till further notice might be turning some visitors down into visiting the place for the time being. Not all attractions are opened which states coming soon. Thus, some might want to wait for awhile when everything is working to make the trip and money worthwhile instead, paying 5 dollars for after hours to go in for some sightseeing. Furthermore, the ticket might not be available on the spot as there is limited admission visitors need to book in advance through internet. Some might not want to go about the fuss booking the ticket and stuffs.

Strategies ( SWOT )
SWOT Analysis

Strengths

USS is located in the City State of Singapore – easily accessible and at the crossroad of major air traffic flow that can direct a huge potential market to the Studio.

It has a very strong appeal to visitors and tourists, as Universal Studio is already a well-known Branding internationally.

The individual attractions, shows and rides within USS are really world-class and offer unparalleled fun and enjoyment to the visitor

USS is an important component within a newly-developed Integrated Resort in the Leisure Island of Sentosa that includes casino, conventions and meetings, hotel and F&B. Each area can draw on each other to generate more business and increases revenue which could eventually contribute to Singapore’s growing economy.

Weaknesses

USS needs to keep improving and creating new attractions, rides, performances etc to bring repeat visitors back and sustain visitorship numbers.

USS is highly dependent on tourists’ visitors to sustain its daily visitors.

The admission charge is relatively high and will be a major set-back to visitors.

Visitor numbers are currently high every day, so there is a need for advanced bookings of up to a week to ensure getting admission tickets for a preferred visit date. However last-minute plan to visit USS may result to tickets being sold out and thus people wanting to go would be disappointed.

USS requires high operating and maintenance costs and will take many years for the investor to recover its total investment.

Opportunities

1. The regional market potential is huge for USS. Strong economic growth in the region will lead to better spending. This will result to more tourists arrivals at Singapore, and USS.

2. The Singapore Tourism Board has set high target for tourism visitorship targeting to hit 15 million visitors by 2015. USS is thus able to capture a huge amount of this number as it is a major tourist destination for these visitors to visit.

Threats

Economic downturns and recession when it happens, will negatively affect USS in a big way, since traveling and spending will drop due to such poor economic condition.

New players and neighbouring countries will try to copy the success of the Integrated Resort concept and develop their casinos, theme-parks, hotels. All these will present a threat to USS as visitors are drawn away from it.

Competitor ( Escape Theme Park )

Escape theme park is an outdoor park located at Downtown East, Pasir Ris. It is not a theme park where fairy tales came alive like universal studio. But a normal park consisting of families and thrills rides catering for all ages. But the park is only available on Saturday, Sunday, primary and secondary and public holidays unlike Universal Studio which opens daily. It is catered more for locals as the going to the place is a bit troublesome due to have to change bus going down there. Many tourists might not know how to get there. But Universal Studio is much simpler due to the monorail services. Also, the operation days falls on weekends and public holidays which make lesser tourist visiting it as they are not able to go in the theme park during weekdays as weekends might be packed and there might be a lot of queues for the rides.

Surveys results

Due to the rejection of my email to conduct my interview for universal studio, I decided to conduct a survey on Universal Studio to ask them about their views to have non – bias and a clearer perception of the theme park. Knowing how it actually attract the people there and why Universal Studio is able to bring a greater heights in both tourism and economically. There are a total of 6 questions being asked where. A total of 50 people responded to the survey which I had created, to know more about the views of Universal Studio. Most of the people that took the survey were youths and some working adults with a mixture of gender and ages to make the survey unbiased. The answers were analysed by the replies and feedback found in the survey.

Firstly, do you think that it is worth the money going to Universal Studio? The objective of this question asked is to find out how many people think that a costly admission ticket of Universal Studio is worth taking a trip to visit. Thus, if many agree with it, it means to say that Universal Studio has successfully captured the attention of people thinking of going there and the admission ticket is valued for money, and worth the price for going there to visit.

Through the survey, 73.9% of the respondent said yes and 26.1% said no. With the majority of the respondent voted for yes, I concluded that Universal Studio is worth going.

Secondly, if money is not a factor would you visit Universal Studio for once? The objective of the question is to assume if the admission ticket is affordable for everyone, are they willing to spend their time visiting the place for at least once.

The survey result obtained with votes of 94% of yes, people would certainly go to the place if money is not an issue to them.

Thirdly, what do you think of the service of Universal Studio? The objective of the question is to ask about the service they provided is it was satisfying to bring a good reputation to the tourist and locals to make them visit the place again.

57.1% of respondent voted for average service and 40.5% voted for good service, this means that the service provided is above average. They only require a little more effort for improvements thus, bringing greater income for Singapore. Only 2.4% voted for bad service.

Fourthly, for those who had visited Universal Studio what is your comment about? The objective of the question is to ask those people who had visited there to talk about their view of it and impression of Universal studio have left for them.

Some of the people had great reviews about Universal Studio and said that they would visit the place again. Due to their great ambience and atmosphere it had created, it is worth the trip down the place. There are several different themes all found n one place.

But some said that it was not really up to standards, as not all rides are operational. Thus, it became a disappointment to them as they are not able to ride all when the admission ticket is costly. Thus, they should have the responsible to ensure all rides are operational before opening.

There is also a comparison between Singapore Universal Studio and other countries. Singapore one was small as compared to others hence little rides s available. But the effort is still there for making the only several themed theme park found in Singapore.

Fifth, for those who did not go Universal Studio before what are your views about the place? The objectives of asking the question is asking about what impression does Universal Studio brings them. To test if they would ever wanted to visit it.

Most of them have said that the impression that the Universal Studio brought was expensive and glamorous. It is a fun and exciting place to go but definitely a price to pay. It is a place where cartoons and fairytale came alive, a different theme park found in Singapore. It seems to be made a tourist attraction and point. But the price is still a bit high and has to consider as there might be crowds whereby one could not be able to finish all the rides in one day as the park stops operating at 7. But more choose to go there once after it is fully operational to make the money paid worthwhile.

Lastly, how would rate Universal Studio? The objective of the question is to ask if after all Universal Studio is worth the money and time to go.

52.4% voted for average and depends, 40.5% voted for up to expectations and worth going. Thus with the high vote of average and depends, I think that it is due to the money factor whereby not all the facilities is opened. Due to the next highest vote is up to expectation and worth going, I concluded that when all the facilities the 52.4% of the respondent would most probably make their trip down USS. As when all the facilities are opened, it will make their money and time more worth. I believed a lot is waiting for the major attraction to resume and make their trip to USS. Only 4.8% voted for not up to expectations and consider and total waste each separately.

This survey had served its purpose of surveying the response they thought of Universal Studio. With the survey results being positive, it means that Singapore is success in building Universal Studio. Thus, with a positive response it means that people are attracted to it investing in the place which serves the purpose of tourist attraction point and contributing to economy sector of Singapore is a great success.

Conclusion

Based on my first hand observation of the Universal Studio, USS has been successful in appealing to the general public as well as tourists. It has been contributing a significant amount of revenue towards Singapore’s economy through the tourism sector since its first launch. It basically appeals to a wide market segment and thus that is one of the reasons for its success. I personally find that through such world-renowned tourists’ attractions, Singapore’s economy will be impacted in a positive way for many years to come.