New CF Attendance Figure Policy

[GADVwow]

'06 a good year for Michigan's Adventure

Saturday, January 13, 2007

By Dave Alexander

CHRONICLE BUSINESS EDITOR

Amusement park operator Cedar Fair Entertainment Co. saw a slight overall drop in visitors at its parks last year.

That apparently was not the case for Michigan's Adventure, however, though Cedar Fair -- which owns and operates Michigan's Adventure -- declined to release 2006 figures for individual parks.

Muskegon County tourism officials speculate that Michigan's Adventure had another record year after posting 550,000 customers in the 2005 season. But park General Manager Camille Jourden-Mark said she cannot provide specific attendance numbers for her park.

"All I can say is that we had a very good year," Jourden-Mark said. "We had excellent weather the entire summer season."

Attendance was down less than 1 percent at Cedar Fair's amusement and water parks, the company said this week. That does not include five parks the company acquired last year when it bought Paramount Parks Inc.

Combined attendance at the parks was 19.3 million people, the company said. Guests last year spent roughly the same amount as they did in 2005 once inside park gates, Cedar Fair said.

Not breaking down attendance by park has become a corporate policy since the company has become significantly larger with the Paramount acquisitions, said spokeswoman Stacy Frole. Cedar Fair's attendance numbers are intended for the investment community and not for individual park communities.

The lack of specific numbers, however, is not a big deal, said Sam Wendling, director of the Muskegon County Convention & Visitors Bureau.

"Numbers would have been nice but we know what happened," Wendling said. "There is absolutely no doubt that '06 was a spectacular year for Michigan's Adventure. Looking at our (room tax) numbers up 8 percent and the weather the way it was, they had a record year."

(emphasis added)

http://www.mlive.com/news/muchronicle/inde....xml&coll=8