As a venue integrating leisure, entertainment, sports, and vacation functions centered around water, the domestic water park market has seen a slowdown in recent years. However, the Asian region remains a major growth engine, and the Chinese water park market is expected to exceed US$3-4 billion by 2030.

In terms of investment and equipment composition, most outdoor water parks globally invest between US$10 million and US$40 million, with equipment accounting for 15%-30% of the total investment. In terms of equipment composition, the amusement projects in water parks mainly include four types: wave pools, lazy rivers, water play equipment, and body slides/raft slides.

Data from (The Park Database)

The above data shows that slide-type equipment, water play equipment, and pool-type equipment (including wave pools) are the mainstays of water park operations and visitor experiences. Their operating status directly affects the success or failure of water park operations.

Water park equipment and operations also face challenges, such as serious equipment homogenization, lack of innovation, increased costs and uncertainties in operational effectiveness due to technological integration and upgrades, seasonal limitations, and difficulties in improving operational efficiency.

Water park visitor experiences have six characteristics: subjectivity, comprehensiveness, dynamism, interactivity, cultural differences, and emotional orientation. During their visit, visitors form an overall impression through the combined effects of elements such as the environment, equipment, service, culture, and interpersonal interaction.

In the current market environment, visitor needs for water park experiences have shifted from single amusement to themed and scenario-based experiences. Immersive themed scene design, technological interaction and immersive experiences, upgraded safety and comfort requirements, and the penetration of healthy and green environmental protection concepts have become important directions for water park equipment innovation.

Water park equipment innovation is subject to multiple constraints and faces a series of technical difficulties: In terms of influencing factors, the owners' understanding of equipment and operations directly affects the direction of decision-making, reasonable investment budgets define the boundaries of innovation, local climate characteristics, topography, and other natural conditions limit equipment selection, land use scale and land properties restrict spatial layout, while the surrounding market competition forces the need for product differentiation. At the practical level of equipment innovation, six core contradictions need to be overcome—the organic unity of equipment stimulation and safety protection must be achieved, while balancing R&D costs and market pricing pressure; the contradiction between rapid iteration of consumer demand and long innovation cycles must be addressed, as well as the conflict between personalized equipment customization and the economies of scale in production; the complex functions of equipment experience and simplified operational management needs must be coordinated, and the dynamic balance between technological advancement and equipment operational stability and safety must be ensured. This poses multi-dimensional challenges to the technological reserves and system integration capabilities of equipment R&D enterprises.

In response to the above challenges and needs, Haishan Amusement has proposed the following strategies:

Operation-oriented, site-specific and reasonable equipment layout: Reasonably plan the equipment layout according to the actual situation of the park and market demand to improve operational efficiency.

Differentiated equipment selection to meet optimized experience needs: Create differentiated competitiveness by introducing novel and unique equipment.

Strengthen the configuration of interactive and social attribute equipment, taking into account the needs of different consumer groups: Enhance the interactivity and sociality of equipment to meet the needs of different visitor groups.

Integrated creation of themed immersive experience scenes with equipment and service facilities: Create distinctive themed scenes through the combination of buildings, water bodies, and landscape features to enhance visitor experience.

Adopt new technologies to improve equipment quality: such as RTM technology, light-transmitting technology, and unique appearance technology, to improve the durability and aesthetics of the equipment.

Taking Hangzhou Future Valley Water Park as an example, this paper elaborates on the practice of Haishan Amusement's equipment innovation in enhancing visitor experience.

Hangzhou Future Valley Water Park covers an area of more than 2,000 mu and is a large-scale ecological tourism project integrating conferences and exhibitions, hotels, museums, commercial facilities, and a water park. The core project, "Tianmu Future Valley Water World," covers an area of more than 70,000 square meters. With the core theme of "Future Nature Exploration," it uses three principles—original IP empowerment, composite product design, and three-dimensional space utilization—to create China's first all-season operating water amusement complex integrating technological experience, ecological interaction, and extreme challenges.

1. Combining future themes with local culture, integrating equipment and supporting facilities, and creating themed immersive experience scenes;

2. Combining water and land equipment, integrating indoor and outdoor amusement, and all-season operation to alleviate seasonal pain points;

3. Empowering technology, innovating equipment, and configuring equipment sound, light, and electricity to create unique equipment IPs and expand consumption scenarios;

4. Breaking through technological bottlenecks, innovating equipment high ground, and creating unique experiences for visitors.

Haishan Amusement always adheres to the philosophy of "Technology Creates Happiness, Creativity Leads Life." Our mission is to create extraordinary experiences for visitors and help owners achieve their dream parks. We are willing to cooperate with our industry peers to make new contributions to the sustainable development of the water park industry!

(This article is provided by Haishan Amusement )

Haishan Amusement Contact Information: 18620928882