Alton Towers owner sees significant fall in visitor numbers

Alton Towers owner Merlin Entertainments has seen its annual profits edge up after last summer's rollercoaster accident which left five people seriously injured.
Strong performances from venues such as the York Dungeon boosted growth in the firm.Strong performances from venues such as the York Dungeon boosted growth in the firm.
Strong performances from venues such as the York Dungeon boosted growth in the firm.

The group​, ​which also owns attractions such as Legoland, Madame Tussauds​, The York Dungeon and Scarborough Sea Life Sanctuar​y,​ said it overcame a fall in revenues at its theme parks to post a pre-tax profit rise of 0.3​ per cent​ to £250​m in the year to December 26.

It said Alton Towers had a "significant" fall in visitor numbers after the accident on its Smiler ride on June 2, which resulted in the 500-acre theme park in Staffordshire being shut down for four days.

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Chief executive Nick Varney said: "Despite a challenging year, the business delivered a robust performance in 2015.

"However, 2015 was a difficult year for Merlin following the accident at Alton Towers early in the summer season. The safety of our guests and employees must always come first and we have sought to learn every possible lesson to help ensure there is no repeat of what happened on 2 June."

Merlin, which runs 110 attractions in 23 countries, said sales at its theme park business tumbled 12.4​ per cent​ to £285​m as the division was "dominated by the impact of the incident at Alton Towers", which came during the peak summer season.

But it added strong performances from its Legoland parks, and venues such as Madame Tussauds and the ​York​ Dungeon - which it calls its midway attractions - boosted growth in the firm.

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Merlin said in November that the crash of its Smiler ride at Alton Towers in June was cause by human error as staff misunderstood a shutdown message and wrongly restarted the rollercoaster.

The group said it is putting in place a range of measures to guard against an accident like this happening again, such as installing new compliance managers at all its theme parks and forming a new group engineering unit.

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