The owner of Legoland, Alton Towers and Madame Tussauds is planning to introduce budget airline-style surge pricing, so families will pay more on peak summer weekends than rainy weekdays, as visitor numbers have fallen since the pandemic.
Scott O’Neil, the chief executive of Merlin Entertainments, which owns 141 attractions in 23 countries, said the group was aiming to introduce a dynamic pricing model – widely known as surge pricing – at its top 20 global attractions by the end of this year, and big US attractions next year.
“If [an attraction] is in the UK, it’s August peak holiday season, sunny and a Saturday, you would expect to pay more than if it was a rainy Tuesday in March,” O’Neil told the Financial Times.
The system will use machine learning to flex prices in response to supply and demand – in a similar way to that already deployed by cut-price airlines, cab-hailing services such as Uber and some hotels.
Technology has made the technique increasingly popular with companies, but less so with their customers. The US burger chain Wendy’s was forced to rush out a statement promising it “would not raise prices when our customers are visiting us most,” – and only drop prices at less popular times – after announcing it would begin to trial surge pricing last month.
Merlin said in a statement that the new system “brings us in line with competitors and the broader holiday industry that have similar pricing structures, which benefit guests who choose to book off-peak”. It said the changes would “enable greater flexibility for guests booking online to choose discounted prices for select dates and times.”
“To ensure we continue to deliver the best value and experience for our guests, we regularly review our pricing structure and admission prices in line with the marketplace and we reduce them in off peak periods. This also makes sure that the peak period experience is optimised by avoiding overcrowding. This approach clearly works because our guest satisfaction is at an all-time high.”
The scheme emerged as Merlin, which was taken private in 2019, revealed sales had risen 8% last year to a record £2.1bn, led by the return of international tourists to big cities including London where the group operates the London Eye and the London Dungeon as well as Madame Tussauds.
However, visitor numbers to the company’s attractions had yet to return to pre-pandemic levels. About 62 million people visited its 141 attractions across 23 countries last year, 13% up on the previous year but still well below the 67 million visitors recorded in 2019.
