Karamjit Singh – The Flying Sikh Malaysia Forgot

THE BUSINESS OF ATTRACTIONS

Revenue Is Up.
Is the Business Getting Stronger?

A 360° operating model for business owners and managers

By Dr. Amarjeet Singh @ AJ

A theme park can be full on Saturday and still struggle to make money from the weekend. The ticketing team sees a crowd. Finance sees discounted tickets and agent commissions. Operations sees queues and overtime. Guests see a food outlet that ran out of its most popular meal before lunch. Each team is seeing a different part of the same business.

A Deputy General Manager in Indonesia’s theme park industry reported two results alongside the development of interactive web and mobile dashboards. The figures below are the ranges reported in that example.

Reported year-on-year changes

Revenue growth · 10–20%

Expense and cost reduction · 10–20%

0%10%20%

The next questions are where the growth came from, what it cost to generate and whether the savings will hold. In attractions, I would look at contribution after direct costs, cash collection, guest experience and operational reliability alongside the headline results.

01 / Management hierarchy and decision rights

I have been in meetings where everyone agreed to change something. Staff were ready, but an approval stalled or a senior person gave the team a different instruction. Weeks later, the manager was asked why nothing had moved. A hierarchy should help people decide and escalate, especially when family influence and formal authority overlap.

OWNERS / BOARD

Set direction, approve investment and define budget and risk limits. Ask what demand a redevelopment will create, what assumptions support it and when cash will be needed.

↓ Direction and authority

GM / DGM

Translate the strategy into targets and a funded plan. Set decision limits and resolve trade-offs across sales, operations, finance and engineering.

↓ Direction and authority

DEPARTMENT HEADS

Own the departmental numbers, staffing plans and corrective actions. Escalate decisions outside agreed limits with a recommendation.

↓ Direction and authority

SUPERVISORS / FRONTLINE

Run each shift, flag issues early and test approved fixes. Report what guests actually experience.

↑ Evidence and escalation

Performance, guest feedback and operational risks move up the same chain. Give escalations a named decision-maker and response deadline. A supervisor can open a staffed till within the roster. A GM can approve a roster change within budget. An owner decides on investment outside the agreed limit.

02 / The funnel that drives profitable business

The funnel starts before a visitor sees the entrance and continues after they leave. Review it separately for direct guests, travel agents, schools and corporate groups. Each channel has different costs, lead times and reasons to book.

01 · ATTRACT

Reach the right audience. Track qualified enquiries and acquisition cost by channel.

↓

02 · QUALIFY

Confirm group size, date, budget and needs. Track response time and qualified leads.

↓

03 · CONVERT

Close the booking, collect the deposit and confirm capacity. Track booking conversion and contribution per sale.

↓

04 · DELIVER

Coordinate arrival, queues, staffing and service. Track attendance, wait times and spend per visitor.

↓

05 · RETAIN

Follow up, resolve complaints and invite a return visit or rebooking. Track repeat bookings and referrals.

Work the funnel before spending more on marketing

If school enquiries are strong and bookings are weak, check quotation turnaround, coach access, teacher requirements and package pricing. If bookings are strong and guests leave unhappy, fix the visit. Compare what each package earns after commissions, meals and other direct costs, then check when customers actually pay.

03 / Build the complete 360° operating system

The funnel brings business in. The operating system makes sure the attraction can serve that business, learn from it and repeat what works. Here is how I would connect the parts.

1 · Strategy and guest offer

Choose who you serve and why they would return. Give every new attraction, school programme or evening experience a clear audience and a reason to pay.

2 · Sales and distribution

Turn the offer into packages, channel targets and a booking calendar. Use school and corporate business to build demand on quieter days.

3 · Operations and asset readiness

Match staffing, maintenance and safety checks to forecast demand. Give teams SOPs for busy shifts, downtime and incident escalation.

4 · People and accountability

Train supervisors to coach and decide within clear limits. Make good practices part of onboarding and shift handovers.

5 · Finance and cash

Review contribution by channel, cost per visitor, receivables and upcoming commitments. Protect preventive maintenance and training when looking for savings.

6 · Data and improvement

Use one dashboard with agreed definitions and named owners. Trace a variance to the floor, test a fix, measure it and update the SOP when it works.

↺ Feed what you learn into the next plan

Weekly reviews clear operational blockers. Monthly reviews compare margin, cash and guest outcomes with targets. Quarterly reviews revisit the offer, capacity and investment priorities. Record who owns each action and when it will be checked.

04 / What the operating loop looks like on a busy weekend

Say attendance goes up while food and beverage spend per visitor falls. The dashboard shows when the decline happens. A supervisor walks the outlets and finds that school groups and walk-in guests arrive at the same kiosk at noon. The team tests staggered meal slots and opens a second service point. Finance checks whether the extra sales cover the added staffing cost. Operations checks queue times and guest feedback. If the change holds across comparable weekends, the team updates the roster and group booking instructions.

That is the kind of improvement I want to see travel across departments. Sales can set better expectations before the buses arrive. Operations can prepare the shift. Finance can see whether it pays. The next supervisor can run it without having to rediscover the fix.

One result. One explanation. One action.

At the next management review, ask each department head what moved, what the evidence shows and what they will do before the next meeting. Owners should ask which decision is waiting on them.

Plan + Actions = Results

When the next busy weekend comes, can the team serve more guests well, protect the margin and handle the unexpected with the authority it has been given? That is the test I would put alongside the growth numbers.