Maya buzzes into Poland

Rafał Ostrowski, ‘Eurobuild Central & Eastern Europe’: Dutch investor Momentum Capital is planning to build a major tourist destination in central Europe – the Holiday Park Kownaty Poland amusement complex, consisting of a number of theme parks over an area of 205 ha. The first phase is to be called Majaland and is due to open as early as December next year. Could you tell us more about what Majaland will be like?

Daniel Heinst, CEO, Holiday Park Kownaty Poland: Majaland will be an indoor and outdoor theme park. This means that it will have attractions and activities based around a topic or theme. This theme comes from the Maya the Bee cartoon, which is very well known in Poland, along with two extra characters: Vic the Viking and Heidi. It will be open all year round, catering to families with young children from 2 years old up to 8, 10 or even 12.

How big will Majaland be?

DH: The indoor hall, which is to be built in the first phase of the project, will have 8,000 sqm of usable space, and the outdoor area will cover another 1.5 ha. Both the indoor and the outdoor area will make up a single park, where you can stay after buying a single ticket. It will feature around 25 attractions ranging from very big mechanical rides, like carousels and an indoor rollercoaster – specifically, one that is suitable for children of at least 1m in height. It is not some huge, crazy rollercoaster. It has been designed so that children with their parents can have their first rollercoaster experience.

The first phase of the park is to closely resemble an existing park in the Netherlands, called Plopsa Indoor Coevorden. Why is that?

DH: Momentum Capital is a Dutch investment and development company and we are developing the project in a joint venture with Belgian company Plopsa. Plopsa is currently the owner and operator of six theme parks in Western Europe. It has three amusement parks in Belgium, one in the Netherlands and one in Germany, as well as another themed aquapark in Belgium. Basically, Plopsa is bringing its know-how and its expertise for the contract, design and construction work, while Momentum Capital is the investor. Plopsa parks are all a little different, but what we did is to take the Plopsa Indoor Coevorden design and adapt it to Polish conditions. So we had to make some small changes in line with various Polish construction regulations. But basically, what we will build for Majaland is like 80 pct of Plopsa Indoor Coevorden.

What do you like most about Plopsa Indoor Coevorden?

DH: Firstly, it provides a bit of an escape for families with children. It is open all year round, so you can go any time you want. It just has everything you need in one place and under one roof.

How will the Majaland project compare to other amusement parks in Poland.

DH: What we are now building has not existed in Poland up to now. It is a real theme park, where everything is immersed in the story of its characters.

Bruno Lambrecht, the general manager of CFE Polska: It will be like a mini Disneyland, as everybody knows from the Plopsa parks
in Belgium and Holland. They are very popular. It will not only be a park, but also a world of its own – one that children know from the TV. Even parents know Maya the Bee.

Majaland is a EUR 20 mln investment. When do you expect this to start paying for itself?

DH: Majaland itself should break even in seven years’ time.

Are you able to say how much a ticket is going cost?

DH: We haven’t really decided yet what the ticket prices will be. We will open at the end of next year, so we’ll see how the market has developed by then and will set our ticket prices accordingly. But, of course, we have to come up with a ticket price that is affordable both for our Polish customers and those from Germany as well – the park is very close to the German border. We have to find the right balance.

Are you planning to extend Majaland in the future?

DH: Yes. Majaland will grow. In December 2017 the park we will be opening will be of the same size as the one in Coevorden, but in the following year we will already be adding something to the outdoor zone, and we will again add something the year after that. These features don’t always have to be big. Extending Majaland might just mean adding another attraction, and this could be an investment as small as EUR 500,000. The park can grow continuously. But eventually, it should be even four times the size of Plopsa Indoor Coevorden.

If I’ve understood this correctly, you are looking at all the different Plopsa parks and picking from them what you would like to have here?

DH: Yes. We are cherry picking the best elements, but for this we're not limiting ourselves only to Plopsa parks – we have visited many parks in Europe and beyond to see what’s new, what is available, what works and what would be a perfect addition for us.

Are you also planning an aquapark? Plopsa owns an aquapark in Belgium. You could also bring a similar concept to Poland…

DH: Yes, we are.

BL: Plopsa has an aquapark in Belgium, which has thunderstorm and rain special effects and is also totally themed.

So Majaland will eventually cover about 30 ha – but the land owned by Momentum is seven times larger. How are you going to use the rest of it?

DH: Well, this won’t be done in a day. It is going to be a development site for another fifty years. The thing is that with this kind of development you never finish building. Look at Walt Disney World Resort. Every year something gets added. And in the leisure sector especially you have to add something new every year to be able to get your customers to come back for the next season. So that is why I am saying it will take fifty years, because such things tend to never get finished.

Ok, so within this fifty-year span, what do you plan to develop in Kownaty?

DH: In the current first phase it will be Majaland. The second phase,which will be adjacent to Majaland, will be aimed at a slightly older clientele. We're going to offer a range of sports, extreme sports, outdoor activities. This is a completely new concept. It could be a combination of trampolining, indoor climbing, indoor skiing, indoor surfing and maybe carting, motocross and so on. It will basically be for twelve-year-olds or older.

And how big will this park be?

DH: To give you a better idea, in our partnership with Plopsa we’ve secured around 30 ha, of which 10 is now being developed and will open next year. So we have another 20 ha to develop in subsequent phases with Plopsa. And for the sports park we have reserved another 40 ha.

Will you have a partner for that, such as Plopsa is for Majaland?

DH: Yes, this will be a media and entertainment company from the UK.

So it will also have a definite theme?

DH: Yes, of course. We’re always looking for this kind of immersive experience. Because this time it will be about sport and will feature famous sports figures, athletes and so on. But it will still have something to do with the media. These things are all very complementary today. You see something on TV and you want to experience it in real life.

When are you planning to open the second phase and how soon will it start after the first one?

DH: The second phase should realistically open either at the end of 2018 or early 2019. We would like to start the second phase very soon after the first one. Ideally, we will just continue building one phase after another.

BL: If I may add, even when we have only completed the first phase, it will already be an all-day amusement park. Coevorden in Belgium, which this park will be very similar to, is an all-day amusement park. In Belgium and Holland you only have Majalands as standalone parks.

DH: Yes, but Majaland in Kownaty will offer six to eight hours of entertainment on average. To give people a reason to actually stay there, we have to go on to have at least ten to twelve hours of entertainment. So the second phase will increase the total entertainment time to more than twelve hours. And then it will start making sense to add accommodation.

So there will be a hotel?

DH: Yes. We expect that the fully built-out park will attract enough visitors to make accommodation feasible. So the third phase would be to build either a hotel or a bungalow park. And again that would be done with a third partner. We just want to keep the same formula: Momentum Capital puts up the finance and the investment, while we find a third partner with the expertise and the know-how to deliver the project and make sure that it works.

Do you have an idea of who the hotel operator will be?

DH: No, we are not at that phase yet. We have been approached recently by a Spanish hotel group that is already interested in the project, but like I said it is a little too early to get into the hotel operations details.

And you’re not thinking about building a shopping centre there?

DH: At some point in the next fifty years this location will become so attractive that it will have separate retail facilities, but that time is definitely not now. I really think that it could eventually easily attract 3 mln visitors a year, once it is fully developed. When you can attract the number of visitors who will also spend several days there, then developing retail absolutely makes sense. But now we are really talking about the next ten years of development.

What else will there be in the future?

DH: I think, for example, that at one point we will also add a variety of small entertainment facilities, similar to
Disney Springs or Universal City Walk. Because people will be coming on Monday and leaving on Friday, so they will have four nights to stay. During the day they will spend time in the park, but that will close at six or seven, leaving them with the whole evening to do something. That will be the time for night entertainment. So then restaurants will be added and bars, theatres, cinemas, whatever. And that could all be done in the form of an open village. One that is not ticketed, but open to the public and that could also be used in different ways. And if everything is then working fine, the final addition would certainly be a range of B2B facilities, such as a corporate five-star Hilton hotel with conference rooms.

BL: The idea is that company representatives will bring their families to the park when a large conference is on and then the next day, for example, they will all go off to play golf.

Will this park have a rollercoaster for adults?

DH: Yes. One day, but I cannot tell you when. You also have to listen to your customers, so now we are creating an entirely new product with completely new facilities. We have many ideas, but without feedback from the public, you cannot fully know their needs.

The full interview will be published in the December issue of ‘Eurobuild CEE’ magazine. The publication is available at Empik stores, on the ‘Eurobuild CEE’ website as well as through subscription to the magazine.