rotorsownyou7

A theme park outside Roanoke would be a decent idea. Who said investors wouldn't be willing to jump on it? The economy is booming in many ways, but consumer tourism isn't too huge. BUT... Americans still travel A LOT even with rising gas prices. Outside of Roanoke is a good location. It would suck up all of western VA, some of the south, central, and maybe even some further east. It would have to be something great to get tourism outside that. And it wouldn't hurt that it would be around colleges: VA western, Roanoke college, VA Tech, JMU, and UVA.

Back to the original question. While an amusement park usually draws pretty good dough and a good few people, it won't do wonders for the local economy. Other than supplying a few jobs... Amusement parks don't bring people for weeks. The local economy flurishes when something keeps you there. A park would only attract people for a day at a time, maybe 2. Even a hotel wouldn't be a huge success.

This is all based on the assumption that the amusement park isn't some amazing special park with some out-of-this-world rides.

VanillaThrilla

My point about the hotels being successful is that they don't have to do anything other than keep the doors open and offer a reasonable price, basically. Does the Hampton Inn advertise when the races are in Martinsville? Fuck no.. Are they booked up well before the races? Hell yes. Granted, days like that are few and far between, but they save a ton of expensive resources because it's a service that people have to have. It's something that people are going to take advantage of for various reasons, but none of those reasons really matter. Outside of a theme park, people are bound to stay at the hotel. Same with the beach... If you build it, they will come

cootees

Then build it. Hell i'll even book the honeymoon suite for the grand opening night... as long as you will personally clean up after my mess.

VanillaThrilla

It's actually something that I have really put a lot of thought into... My biggest dream is entrepreneurship. I've even considered starting small with a tropical sno stand on Williamson Road. lol.. I know that sounds silly, but I've talked to one of the owners of one of the local stands and he's given me a lot of useful information about the business, and the product. I figure that's how a lot of business owners start. Small. You put one up, it does well, you put another up..... sooner or later you're able to venture into another type of business working your way up. I've always wanted to open a few hotels.

Boxer4PSI

I was just browsing around when I saw this. While I don't know Western VA very well at all (I just take I-81 thru the area en route from DC to TN and other places, and its been ages since I've been to Charlottesville), I don't think an amusement park would do very well in Western VA. That's because the region is already packed with amusement parks relatively speaking.

I mean, there's Paramount's Kings Dominion just outside of Richmond, Busch Gardens/Water Country USA in Williamsburg, Six Flags America in DC, Paramount's Carowinds in Charlotte, Dollywood in Gatlinburg, TN, Six Flags theme park in Kentucky, Paramount's Kings Island in Southern Ohio, and if you wanted to stretch it farther...Six Flags in Atlanta, Hershey Park in PA, Dutch Wonderland in PA, Six Flags in NJ.

The market is saturated. While I'm not an expert on the theme park market, I would venture to say this. Theme parks are usually destinations people are willing to drive a couple hundred miles easily to get to (or in the case of Disney World, people travel across the world).

Leave the Roanoke area and drive for a maybe 300-400 hundred of miles, and you will hit five of those parks, possibly six if you include Kentucky. Basically Disney would have to open up another theme park in the Roanoke area for it to stand out against the other ones enough to grab the other parks' target audiences.

Given the fact that they were seriously trying to open up a Disney theme park in Manassas back in the '90s, I don't think having a Disney park in VA is out of the question.

rotorsownyou7

What makes someone come to your hotel? What about all the others? There is actually a lot of marketing involved. Race days are the exception. There are so many people that they have nowhere else to go.

But like I said... I think a theme park would be a decent idea and a hotel beside it wouldn't be bad. But you'd need to think quick because if you didn't, someone else would.

The market is definetly NOT saturated. People in our area have to drive AT LEAST 3 hours in every direction up to over 5 to get to one. That seriously is calling for a park since our population is growing pretty heavily, not to mention the huge growth outside Smith Mountain Lake. Really, I think a park probably is needed. Let me do some comparions on growth and population and get back to you guys on this.

Only problem... You'd need a guy with some big dough to get that done!

orrickr

I dont care what location anything is built. People are always complaining in roanoke about not having anything to do. I can honestly say i dont think ive ever felt like that. It would be cool to have a new theme park or something of that nature just as long as there arent any of these little thug wannabes. I am so tired of seeing this in all the malls and just about everywhere.

cootees

I don't think it is really a matter of nothing to do in Roanoke. I believe it's more a long the lines of "been there, done that and it gets old after a while"

HatefulMechanic

you think roanoke has nothing to do? try living up here.



drink, smoke, fuck. those are your three options.

VanillaThrilla

That's another reason why I've been thinking "theme park" lately... There are a LOT of complaints about there not being much of anything to do. I, personally, have been struggling over the years too. You know what happens when kids can't find anything to do? They get into trouble.

Let's think... as far as things to do that fall under the "services" category, there's putt putt.. go karts.. pool.. bowling.. movies.. and I think that really covers a big majority of what there is around here for kids (and adults) to do. Of course there are other things like bike riding, fishing, hiking, and things outdoors, but I really don't count those things. I can honestly say that when I was 16-18 years old I probably drove 40,000 miles pretty easily. It really didn't stop when I was 18, but driving always seemed like the best thing to do--or maybe even the only things to do. Now it's too expensive to drive around all day and night to keep yourself occupied.

It's always fun to take a road trip to go to a theme park, but think also of all of the people who buy season passes. I've known people that lived up to two hours away from a park who would buy a season pass and go pretty frequently. I'm sure it would be the same way here.... and then of course there are all of the local people who would go because it would be something to do, so they would go often.

I will agree that there are a LOT of theme parks in the general area, but I personally don't feel like the market for that could ever be overly saturated, realistically. In order for it to be successful, it would have to be different in some way or another, but that wouldn't really be that hard to do something different in a park. Busch Gardens chooses to do themes. I think that's a good idea.

The general concensus is that this could possibly be a good idea? I'm going to throw together a proposal outlining everything and maybe see if anyone bites. I guess you have to start somewhere.