The Park Playground, a unique VR franchise, has revealed that Center Parcs is the first customer for its new turnkey VR facility solution, The Park VR System.
Center Parcs, the leading premium holiday village operator in Europe, will debut the co-branded VR experience at Park Hochsauerland in Winterberg, Germany, where it will open on 23 October. The Park VR System is then planned to roll out to further parks.
Family-first experiences
Center Parcs selected The Park Playground as a VR experience partner in order to offer guests The Park VR System’s family-first experiences. Three games will be available in the hour-long experience. Guests will select from Mask of the Pharaoh, where they will help a museum professor stuck in ancient Egypt; Mission Planet X, a space exploration adventure; and Don’t Scream, which challenges players to keep quiet as they escape a haunted house.
The Park Playground is renowned for using mobile headsets to provide untethered gameplay, which is available across all of its operated or franchised locations. All of the experiences will be available in several languages, including German, English, and French, to meet the needs of the families and groups that travel to Center Parcs from across Europe.
The VR facility, which allows guests to escape to different worlds, requires a space of less than 100 square metres in the village’s entertainment complex. This new guest entertainment option will take just three weeks to install and will provide Center Parcs with the highest revenue return per square metre in the location-based VR market.
Strong income potential
This potential for income generation is achievable as few resources are required to staff and run The Park VR System facility. In addition, the experience has affordable investment requirements and a throughput of 16 people per hour. As a result, Center Parcs will be able to produce significantly more revenue than was previously possible in this area, which had previously been used as two squash courts.
Peter Vindevogel, CEO, The Park Playground, says: “We designed The Park VR System as a solution to fulfil customer demands for more immersive entertainment in the easiest and most cost-effective way possible.
“We couldn’t be more excited that the first leisure operator to recognise the huge benefits that the system can bring them is one that we share a lot of values with. Center Parcs is an incredibly well-renowned, premium brand and we’re thrilled that The Park Playground gets to be a part of creating memorable vacations for their guests.”
Ruud Rerink, product director, Center Parcs Europe, comments: “At Center Parcs we are constantly looking at new and unique experiences to further enrich our guest experience. With the introduction of this brand new, family-friendly virtual reality experience we are happy to introduce a new experience in Park Hochsauerland that lets guests experience the unlimited world of VR, while inside our unique, natural parks. Partnering with The Park gives us the confidence that we have a high-end, constantly evolving offer.”
The Park VR System also includes full on-site training for Center Parcs employees, ongoing online training to keep employees up to date on new features, and KPI tracking with their key account management team. Center Parcs’ employees will also have access to technical support seven days a week and an easy-to-use ticketing system for spares and repairs.
The Park Playground was recently named the winner of the Best Arts and Entertainment Solution category at the 2023 XR Awards for its horror VR escape room, Don’t Scream!
