Intelligent thinking: When will conversational AI become the primary form of guest communication?
Trends identified for UK heritage sector for 2025
Firefighters tackle blaze at popular Costa del Sol waterpark
France's Marineland to close permanently in January
Vekoma looks to 2025 following stacked year of projects
Bristol Zoo will create permanent free history exhibition
Brevard Zoo aquarium to break ground in 2025
Talks over return of Parthenon marbles to Athens 'well advanced'
Sydney's iconic Luna Park sold to new owners
Plans submitted for new multi-million pound Aberdeenshire museum
Merlin announced US$110m plan to open Minecraft theme parks in UK and US
One in five zoo animals test positive for COVID-19
HUSS celebrates multiple Brass Ring Awards
Cruise will be fastest-growing sector in next five years
UK's National Science and Media Museum to reopen in January
Minister opposes transfer of whales from French aquarium to Japan
Man climbs off moving rollercoaster after lap bar opens mid-ride
Turin's Egyptian Museum celebrates 200 years with newly renovated galleries
Scott O'Neil steps down as Merlin CEO after just two years
Great Wolf waterpark gets May opening date
Valencia museums assess damage following flooding
Disney World's Rock 'n' Roller Coaster to get Muppets retheming
Niagara Parks to debut Brogent flying theatre in 2025
Putin gifts lion and brown bears to North Korea zoo
Hands on with Alterface technology at IAAPA
Polin announces Stingrays for Dubai and China
Tecuani Beast - POV
The Smurf Experience coming to US and Canada in 2025
RWS Global expands operations with new offices, new appointment and strategic partnership announcement
Get ready to ride: Planet Attractions announces launch of Planet Rides website
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Attractions.io is offering a solution created to transform guest engagement from transactional to relational
Promising human-like interactions, real-time support, and personalised experiences for visitors, conversational AI is the new hot topic when it comes to visitor attractions. But with something so new and groundbreaking, there are always going to be sceptics. With its new AI Assistant set to launch at IAAPA Expo, Attractions.io’s Mark Locker and Peter O’Dare spoke to Planet Attractions about what AI truly has to offer the sector...
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As we approach a new year, the UK’s visitor attraction and heritage sectors are poised for exciting developments. Several key trends are set to shape the industry in 2025, offering opportunities for innovation, engagement, and sustainability.
Key Trends for 2025
The Rise of Wellness Tourism
Mindful Experiences: Attractions will offer wellness experiences, such as yoga, meditation, and nature walks, to cater to the growing demand for relaxation and rejuvenation.
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Firefighters from Torremolinos, Benalmádena and Malaga tackled a huge fire last Thursday afternoon (5 December) which broke out at the Aqualand water park in Torremolinos on the Costa del Sol. According to the first reports, the fire started in the area of a slide attraction, located in front of the popular 'Kamikaze' attraction. At the moment the cause is unknown.
According to information provided by the town hall, the blaze originated during the theming works being carried out in the leisure complex. No personal injuries were reported, according to municipal sources, although there is material damage. The set of slides affected by the flames has been completely burnt, as could be seen with the naked eye.
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A major French attraction has announced that it will close in January 2025, citing economic difficulties and law changes banning live shows with certain animals.
Marineland in Antibes (Alpes-Maritimes) will close on January 5 after more than 50 years of operations. It will remain the largest water-based zoo in Europe up until its closure.
Tickets to visit the site will continue to be sold up to this date, and tickets booked for after this time can be transferred to an earlier date via the attraction’s website.
Neighbouring attractions including the Aquasplash waterpark and Adventure Golf park will remain open after Marineland closes.
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Siren’s Curse is a Tilt Coaster opening at Cedar Point Credit: Vekoma
The last year has been stacked for ride manufacturer Vekoma, which is celebrating a bumper year in 2024, along with major announcements and completions for both 2025 and 2026.
In the US in 2024, Vekoma has opened Snoopy’s Soap Box Racers at King’s Island, which takes its inspiration from the soap box racing derby, inviting children and their parents the chance to choose their favourite Peanuts-decorated car before racing through a track filled with twists and turns.
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A large number of artefacts, posters, signs and memorabilia that was held back by Bristol Zoo from a series of auctions this month will be displayed in a permanent exhibition at the zoo in the future.
Zoo bosses have attempted to allay fears that the three auctions last week have stripped the zoo of its history - and said many of the items auctioned had duplicates that have not been sold and will be exhibited at the ‘Conservation Hub’, which will maintain a Zoo presence at the Clifton Gardens site after the site is redeveloped.
The three auctions began with a gala dinner in mid-November, followed by a sale of 300 lots of zoo memorabilia, signs, posters, statues and a huge range of other items, and ended on Monday this week with an auction of 40 mid-Victorian park benches, that were specially made for the zoo in the 1860s.
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The aquarium Brevard Zoo is planning to build in Port Canaveral now has a name, and we’re getting new details about when it will be built.
The zoo, which is run by the East Coast Zoological Foundation, expects to break ground on the future Bowen Aquarium and Conservation Center in 2025, with plans to open after two to three years of construction.
The facility will be named after John and Pat Bowen, longtime lovers of the Brevard Zoo who donated millions of dollars to the project after the state of Florida cut $1 million in funding.
The state’s decision to cut the money stalled construction, which was supposed to start this year.
The $100 million aquarium is now 86% funded, zoo officials say.
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Talks concerning the Parthenon marbles between Athens and the British Museum are “well advanced”, the Guardian has learned, even if officials have decided the cultural row will be low on the agenda when the prime minister, Keir Starmer, meets his Greek counterpart on Tuesday.
The fate of the classical masterpieces, which caused a quarrel last year between Rishi Sunak and Kyriakos Mitsotakis, will not be actively raised by either side when the two leaders hold their first Downing Street discussions. Starmer’s spokesperson said on Monday: “Our position on the Elgin marbles has not changed.”
But sources have said that talks between the Greek foreign ministry and George Osborne, the chair of the British Museum, are moving towards “an agreement in principle” to reunify the antiquities in Athens.
“The mood music has completely changed,” said one source close to the negotiations.
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Sydney’s legendary Luna Park has been sold for the first time in nearly 20 years to a leading local hospitality group after an international sales campaign.
Oscar Group, one of the largest privately owned hospitality firms in NSW, has acquired the iconic amusement park from Canadian investment giant Brookfield for an undisclosed price.
Based in Sydney, Oscar Group boasts a diverse portfolio that includes hotels, resorts, pubs, event venues, and commercial and retail properties along Australia’s eastern coastline.
Managing Director Bill Gravanis expressed the company’s excitement over the acquisition, highlighting their successful bid against both local and international competitors, including the operators of Warner Bros. Movie World and Dreamworld.
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Plans have been submitted for the new multi-million-pound Museum of Aberdeenshire and library in Peterhead.
The project will see the listed Arbuthnot House at the lower end of Broad Street sensitively restored and extended to house both the town’s library and a new museum showcasing Aberdeenshire’s extensive heritage collections and artwork.
It forms part of the ambitious Cultural Tides: North Sea Connections in Aberdeenshire bid, supported by £20m from the UK Government alongside the renovation and extension of Macduff Marine Aquarium.
The new museum is being designed to accommodate permanent museum galleries as well as temporary and national touring exhibitions.
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The global gaming phenomenon Minecraft is coming to the real world for the first time in a global deal to open themed rides, attractions, hotel rooms and retail outlets, starting with the UK and US.
Minecraft has struck a deal with UK-headquartered Merlin Entertainments – Europe’s largest theme park operator and the second biggest globally after Disney – which runs more than 135 attractions in 23 countries including Alton Towers, Legoland, Sea Life, Madame Tussauds and the London Eye.
Under the terms of the deal, Merlin will invest more than £85m ($110m) in the first two attractions. They are due to open in the UK and the US in 2026 and 2027, in either an existing theme park or as new city centre attractions.
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A new paper provides a stark reminder that the virus responsible for COVID-19 is still spreading, with 9 animals out of 47 testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 at a zoo in Brazil.
It's likely that the animals caught the virus from humans.
"Zoos are unique in terms of the epidemiology of human-animal interactions," the team led by researchers from the Federal University of Minas Gerais in Brazil writes in their paper.
"They shelter multiple species of wildlife from a wide range of taxonomic groups in relative proximity, and interactions between animals and humans are frequent, especially for animal caregivers."
More from ScienceAlert
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Credit: HUSS
Ride supplier HUSS is celebrating after winning two Brass Ring Awards at the recent IAAPA Expo.
HUSS’s Break Dance 5 picked up the Brass Ring Award for Best New Attraction, while its Sky Tower Multimedia won the second-place award for Best New Product Concept.
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The cruise sector will be the fastest-growing area of the travel industry over the next five years and it represents a major opportunity for agents, delegates were told at Abta’s Travel Regulations conference.
Alexander Göransson, senior consultant at Euromonitor International, predicted that the pace of sales growth for cruise between 2024 and 2029 would outstrip air travel, package holidays, leisure accommodation, experiences and attractions, and car rental.
Projecting growth of 7% for the cruise sector, he described the area as an “emerging market”.
“The fastest-growing holiday element is going to be cruises,” he said, adding: “Cruise companies are now trying to appeal to a much younger demographic.”
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The National Science and Media Museum in Bradford has confirmed a reopening date of 8 January, with a temporary exhibition showcasing David Hockney’s use of film and photography opening the following week.
The museum closed in June 2023 for a £6m capital project that includes two additional permanent galleries, a new passenger lift and improvements to the main entrance and foyer. Its phased reopening next year coincides with the Bradford 2025 City of Culture festivities.
From 8 January, audiences will return to the museum’s Wonderlab and Kodak photography galleries and enjoy a public programme of events, kicking off with a weekend of Wallace & Gromit screenings, model-making and workshops in partnership with Aardman. During this first weekend, the museum’s team of explainers will also be delivering free family-friendly activities with live science shows and object handling.
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France's Minister of Ecological Transition Agnès Pannier-Runacher has announced that she is opposed to the transfer of the two remaining orcas from the Marineland park to Japan due to its lack of extensive "regulations" on animal welfare.
Wikie and Keijo are the last two orcas, living in captivity at Marineland in Antibes in the south of France.
On Monday, the Minister of Ecological Transition Agnès Pannier-Runacher said she was against the proposal to send the pair to Japan.
"There are parks which today are able to accommodate orcas", like "in Spain", but "in Japan, there are no such extensive regulations on animal welfare," she told TF1 broadcaster.
Located on the Côte d'Azur, Marineland has until 1 December 2026 to part with its two orcas, since a law prohibited their detention in 2021.
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A man climbed out of a moving roller coaster after his safety bar unlatched as the car ascended for a drop.
Cell phone footage captured the terrifying moment that the man got up out of his seat and stepped onto the cat walk to his left side just before the car reached the top of the track.
‘I had mere seconds to act on whether I stayed on or got off,’ the man, who wanted to remain anonymous, told 12News.
The man visiting Castles N’ Coasters in Phoenix, Arizona, on Sunday said he could hear clicking from the chain of the Desert Storm ride as it made its way up the track.
Desert Storm has operated since 1992 with the now defunct Hopkins manufacturing the ride.
More from Metro
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Museo Egizio, in the center of the historic Italian city of Turin, is the world’s oldest museum dedicated entirely to ancient Egyptian history. The museum is celebrating its 200th birthday this year, and this month it has reopened its newly renovated galleries with a series of new displays and exhibitions of contemporary artists.
Housed in the 17th-century palace of the Collegio dei Nobili, the Museo Egizio holds over 40,000 artifacts, including mummified remains, significant papyrus texts, an intact tomb transferred as a whole to the museum in the early 20th century, and an enigmatic anonymous sculpture of a woman called Hel that is dedicated to the gods of Memphis.
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Merlin Entertainments announces that Scott O’Neil, Chief Executive Officer, has informed the Board that he has accepted another opportunity. He is standing down from Merlin effective at the end of 2024.
Fiona Eastwood, Chief Operating Officer, will serve as Interim CEO while the Chairman and Board conduct an orderly process to identify a successor.
During his time in the role, Scott O’Neil oversaw several milestone achievements for the business, including the recent announcement of Merlin’s partnership with Minecraft to bring the world’s best-selling game to life in the real world, with the first permanent physical experiences at locations in the UK and US, and positioned the company for continued success.
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Indoor waterpark resort Great Wolf Lodge has set a new opening date for its Connecticut location, resort officials announced Wednesday.
The resort will now open on May 23, 2025, in Mashantucket. Great Wolf Lodge was originally expected to open mid-2025.
Great Wolf Lodge broke ground on its resort location on in February, 13 acres adjacent to the Foxwoods Resort Casino. The location was created as part of an agreement with the Pequot Tribal Nation, which owns the land, according to Great Wolf Resorts.
The 92,000 square-foot indoor waterpark at Connecticut's Great Wolf Lodge will feature 13 slides, a wave pool, a lazy river and water play areas. Several new features will also be included in the waterpark, as it "reflects the next generation Great Wolf Lodge resort experience," according to a news release from Great Wolf Lodge.
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Artists, museums and churches in Valencia, on the central eastern coast of Spain, face devastation following the deadly flash floods on 29 October that killed more than 200 people and caused widespread damage. Although the city of Valencia itself was largely spared, towns immediately to its south—in an area known as La Huerta or “the garden”—were inundated. Heritage sites were badly affected, some irreparably. The area is popular with Valencian artists, many of whom have lost their life’s work along with their workshops.
The artist Juan Olivares’s studio was already under a foot of water when he was alerted that the nearby ravine had overflowed. Twenty-five years of his work was stored on the ground floor of his home in Catarroja, one of the towns hardest hit by the floods. “I tried to save as many paintings as possible by moving them upstairs until the water reached my chest,” he tells The Art Newspaper. Olivares, who is internationally exhibited, returned to his studio the next day to find destroyed works, ruined tools and 20cm of mud. The basement stored a collection of his own pieces, two for every series he has produced throughout his career. “I haven’t checked yet, but I don’t think anything else can be saved,” he says.
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Muppet*Vision 3D will close at Walt Disney World, ending months of fan outcry following TheWrap’s exclusive report back in August that Walt Disney World management and Walt Disney Imagineering, the arm of the company responsible for the theme parks, were mulling the fate of the Jim Henson attraction.
Disney on Friday revealed that Muppet*Vision 3D, a 15-minute 3D movie featuring the Muppets, will indeed shut down, along with the rest of what was once known as Muppet Courtyard. Additionally, a re-theme of Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster, located in the same park, Disney’s Hollywood Studios, has been announced. The attraction that previously was themed to Aerosmith will soon get a Muppet-y overlay, at least giving the Muppet characters a place elsewhere in the park. Hey, Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem know how to rock.
“There’s sure to be laughter, screams and new tunes for this attraction for fans to enjoy throughout the adventure and plenty of Muppets-themed merchandise on Sunset Boulevard!” the official Disney Parks Blog read.
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Brogent is partnering with Niagara Parks to debut a flying theatre attraction in 2025.
Installed right by the iconic Niagara Falls, the new attraction promises to offer visitors an "unparalleled opportunity to explore the breathtaking beauty and rich heritage of Niagara through an innovative and immersive experience."
“At Niagara Parks, our vision is to be one of the most spectacular parks in the world,” said David Adames, CEO of Niagara Parks. “We are proud to be partnering with Brogent Technologies, the world leader in flying theatres to deliver an exceptional new visitor experience to our flagship site Table Rock Centre, located at the brink of the iconic Horseshoe Falls.”
The new attraction replaces the site's previous 4D theatre, with the experience seeing guests soar along the crest of the Horseshoe Falls.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin has gifted North Korea's main zoo more than 70 animals, including a lion and two brown bears, in yet another display of burgeoning relations between Moscow and Pyongyang.
Putin's environment minister, Alexander Kozlov, brought the animals to the North Korean capital on board a cargo plane, Kozlov's office said on its official Telegram channel on Wednesday.
The shipment of animals from Moscow also included two yaks, five cockatoos and dozens of pheasants as well as mandarin ducks, Kozlov's office said.
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Alterface is showcasing its “Imagination Playground” at this year’s IAAPA Expo, with the custom-built demonstration space offering attendees a look at the company’s signature interactive technology.
Each of the four stations has been designed with a focus on “differentiation in mind”.
4D Shooter sees players compete against each other, with players pulling a shooting cord to activate the various targets to win.
Paint features a virtual canvas for users to splash colour across as they unleash their inner artist.
Illuminate uses a special flashlight to explore a scene, discover surprises and avoid dangers.
Trace utilises a wand to connect stars. As they do this, players reveal different shapes and constellations in the artificial sky.
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Polin Waterparks has announced that two new Stingray models are to be installed at parks in Dubai with DXB Entertainment and also In China at a yet to be revealed location.
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Check out the first person footage for Tecuani Beast, coming to Mexico's under development BON Luxury Theme Park. Developed by Vekoma Rides the multi launch coaster features more than 16 seconds of airtime across the ride experience.
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The Smurf Experience is making its way to the North America, with the touring attraction set to commence a multi-city tour across the U.S. and Canada in early 2025.
Welcoming more than two million European visitors across Belgium, Germany, France and Central Europe, The Smurf Experience has been designed by Belgium-based agency Cecoforma in collaboration with Smurf parent entity Peyo Company. SBX Group, a leader in entertainment attractions, is working with Cecoforma and Peyo Company to adapt the experience for North American audiences.
"This launch is particularly exciting as it coincides with Paramount’s upcoming film, featuring Rihanna as Smurfette," said SBX Group’s CEO, Danny Fritz.
"We’re honoured to collaborate with the talented teams at Peyo Company and Cecoforma to deliver a unique, immersive experience to families.”
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RWS Global has made a number of major announcements at IAAPA Expo.
First, the company is set to open two new offices In Shanghai, China, and Orlando, Florida, US.
In addition to launching its Shanghai office, the company has announced a strategic partnership with one of Asia's leading location based entertainment groups - Max-Matching.
Finally, as part of its global exploration expansion, RWS has created a new position within the organisation, with former Paramount executive Veronica Hart named chief growth officer.
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Planet Rides is the latest addition to the Planet Attractions portfolio
Planet Attractions is expanding its portfolio of websites, announcing the launch of its brand-new portal, www.planetrides.com.
Backed by significant growth and catering to both ride manufacturers and suppliers, Planet Rides is the first expansion of the Planet Attractions brand since its launch in December 2020.
After direct consultation with ride suppliers across the industry, Planet Rides will offer a focused look at all types of rides, including rollercoasters, dark rides, waterslides, flying theatres and much more.
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