Ocean Park is a magical place where you can scream your head while you drop 20 stories down on a ride, or where you get to see gorgeous endangered animals, like the first golden snub-nosed monkeys to be kept captive outside of mainland China. All this while enjoying one of the most underrated views in all of Hong Kong.
But over the years locals have been more and more put off by the hordes of tourists who arrive in coach buses, making the wait times for rides almost unbearable. So in a bid to encourage people to visit Ocean Park, they will be launching an app next summer that will let you book rides ahead of time, reports the SCMP.
The app can also tell you how long waiting times are, or help you to book a table at a restaurant. Another major feature is that it will helpfully inform you where it’s less crowded so that you can head over, effectively spreading people throughout the park if the app catches on. There’s already an Ocean Park app but it’s mostly a glorified map with the bonus of being able to unlock coupons if you find QR codes in the park.
To further facilitate visitors’ access to the most current information, Ocean Park plans on launching a free Wi-Fi network within nine months. We’re not convinced this will make the park more efficient though; we’re willing to bet it will just encourage people to walk even slower with their phones in their faces.
It seems a little overeager to announce the app a year ahead of time, but it’s welcome news nevertheless. Lines have been getting longer and longer as the park has evolved from being a beloved local attraction to an amusement park that now ranks among the world’s most-visited theme parks. CNN reports that it’s the 12th most-visited park in the world, with the top 11 all being parks owned by either Universal Studios or Disney.
Last financial year, Ocean Park had a record 7.7 million visitors, a 9% increase over the previous year. That’s 500,000 more than the entire population of Hong Kong. Gulp. Half of the visitors were from the mainland, a fact that’s evident to anyone who visits Ocean Park on any given day.
In 2013 the highest attendance rate for a single date was 45,000 with over 34,000 people in the park at any given time, according to the SCMP. The park’s current maximum capacity is 42,000, but that will increase as the park goes through with a series of planned expansions, including an Iron Man-themed area opening 2016, and a hotel and a water park both launching in 2017.
Photo: Ocean Park Hong Kong via Google Play
