WhiteWater, a leading waterpark manufacturer, paid a successful visit to IAAPA Expo 2021, where it brought its 40th-anniversary celebrations to a close as well as updating attendees on all its latest developments.
The company’s booth featured its “Magic” campaign as part of the 40th-anniversary celebrations. There was also a milestone for WhiteWater in China, with the 10th anniversary of its office there. The company’s WeChat account highlighted the growing team in the region and a move to a new office.
Elsewhere, WhiteWater has also been expanding its regional offices, moving engineering, project manager, after-sales and marketing teams to Shanghai, Munich and Dubai, enabling it to be more responsive to local clients.
Sustainability
As it marked four decades in the business, WhiteWater announced its new corporate-wide initiative for the future, called “Sustainability Scorecard”. This sets out clear goals and measures for the company to reduce its waste by 50% by 2030 and to become net-zero by 2040.
It also revealed some new hires and internal moves, as follows:
- Franceen Gonzales, Chief Experience Officer
- Doug Smith, Global Head of Sales
- David Bogdonov, Regional Vice President, APAC
- Travis Kline, Regional Director of Operations, Middle East
- Domingo Vergoossen, Vice President, Global Business Development, Water Rides
- Frank Good, Vice President, Business Development, Vantage
- Baptiste Caulonque, Chief Commercial Officer, Endless Surf
New ride vehicles
This year, the company provided 14 Super Flume vehicles to Warner Bros. Movie World in Queensland, upgrading the fleet of the popular “Wild West Falls Adventure Ride”. The new boats feature individual hydraulic lap bars for better comfort and removable floorboards for ease of maintenance.
“We are pleased to be able to give this classic ride an upgrade during our off-peak season,” says Village Roadshow Theme Parks COO, Bikash Randhawa. “As this attraction is a guest favourite, we wanted to ensure we continued with both our high safety standards along with high durability of the boats to withstand operations, and the quality of engineering and materials from WhiteWater has impressed us,” he said.
This shows the technical and safety improvements that WhiteWater’s boat refurbishment work can provide.
Innovations in surfing
During IAAPA Expo, WhiteWater also introduced three new models of its FlowRider stationary surf simulator. FlowRider Edge brings a wipeout off the back, while FlowCurl brings together the classic FlowRider double with a curved barrel section. Finally, the FlowSurf is a new river surfing experience on full-sized surfboards. These new products have the same safety and quality as existing FlowRider solutions.
The trend for surfing attractions continues to grow, and WhiteWater’s surf pool division, Endless Surf, is working on several new surf park projects. For example, Gold Coast and Port Douglas in Australia and SURFTOWN in Munich, Germany. Endless Surf uses advanced pneumatic wave technology as well as “Surf Concierge,” a booking engine for session management and tailored waves.
This is powered by Vantage, WhiteWater’s software that brings together separate systems in order to digitise the guest journey and streamline the visitor experience.
Vantage is now in use at Atlantic Dubia, providing a single guest experience platform. Visitors are given a wearable on arrival at Atlantis Aquaventure, linking them to an app and to in-park kiosks, meaning they can easily make payments, gain access to lockers, gather loyalty points and more. For the operator, it also provides useful data and actionable insights.
Brass Ring Award winner
WhiteWater also had cause to celebrate in this year’s IAAPA Brass Ring Awards, as Parallel Pursuit was named as Best New Product – Water Park Ride/Attraction. The competition water slide, which offers true side by side racing with low separating walls, also won a WWA Leading Edge Award earlier this year. The ride, which is already entertaining guests at Nocatee Spray Park in Florida, encourages repeat rides and boosts dwell time.
Parallel Pursuit is available as a mat racer or a body slide and is highly configurable. It also has no height limitations and can fit into small footprints.
New & future projects
WhiteWater has completed several water park projects in 2021. This includes installations at:
- Hurricane Harbor Chicago at Six Flags Great America, Gurnee, Illinois, USA
- Aqua Nick at Nickelodeon Hotel and Resort, Cancun, Mexico
- LEGOLAND Water Park at Gardaland, Castelnuovo del Garda, Italy
- Studio City Water Park, Macau SAR, China
- Ocean Park Water World, Hong Kong SAR, China
- Kaisa Water World, Shenzhen, China
- Shankus Water Park & Resort, Gujarat, India
- Jungle Bay Waterpark, Dubai, UAE
- Desert Falls Water & Adventure Park, Abu Samra, Qatar
The company is also working on more projects set to open next year, for instance an expansion of Kalahari Resorts’ water park in Round Rock, Texas. Taking inspiration from the “Bugs Burrow” water play area at Kalahari’s resort in Ohio, WhiteWater will introduce seven children’s slides with specially themed veiling.
In addition, it is also working on:
- Wet’n’Wild Gold Coast, Australia (to open end of 2021) – Australia’s tallest water slide tower, including a body Parallel Pursuit and Master Blaster + Tailspin fusion slides
- Center Parcs – Domaine des Landes de Gascogne, France – Themed to fit the resort branding and natural surroundings, including AquaPlay and a Constrictor + Rattler Fusion.
- Soaky Mountain Waterpark, Sevierville, Tennessee, USA – Featuring dueling Blasterangos, or two Master Blaster + Boomerango fusion water coasters
- Mt. Olympus Water & Theme Park, Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin, USA – With North America’s first SlideWheel
- Studio City Water Park Phase 2, Macau SAR, China – One of the biggest indoor water parks in Asia
- Qetaifan Island North, Qatar – Featuring a record-breaking tower and an Abyss that is three times larger than standard.
Qetaifan Island North will be home to the tallest tower of its kind in the world, featuring the highest water slide in the world at 80 meters. The Icon Tower will stand 85 meters/260 feet tall and, with two slides at each of the six levels, it will also break the record for the most water slides on a single tower—12. In total, this water park will offer 36 water slides.
Investing in the future of attractions
“In our four decades, WhiteWater has seen the industry grow and slow and continue to innovate. As we turned 40 almost a year ago, we weren’t able to reflect on that and celebrate with the industry partners and clients that we have shared this journey with,” says WhiteWater President and CCO, Paul Chutter.
“Now that we are back together, it is good to see a dynamic industry investing, like us, in the future of attractions. We’ve kept pushing forward during the last year and a half, as all these announcements show.
“As a major player in the attractions industry, we realize now more than ever the importance of what we do, that is, allowing families to create magical, joyful memories together. To be able to continue doing this in the next 40 years, we must ensure that we work together toward sustainable goals.”
Last month, WhiteWater announced it had received WWA Leading Edge Awards for its contribution to Studio City Water Park in Macau, China and Tsunami Surge at Hurricane Harbour Chicago in Illinois, as well as for Parallel Pursuit at Nocatee Spray Park in Florida.
