Wonderla Plans ₹40 Crore Investment in Resort Projects to Boost Non-Ticket Revenue

Arun Chittilappilly, Managing Director of Wonderla Holidays Ltd, has revealed plans to invest an additional ₹40 crores in resort projects aimed at increasing non-ticket revenues by the end of the next financial year.

"We are planning to add convention space, an adventure park, and another 40 premium rooms to the resort to boost our non-ticket revenues. We are also refurbishing restaurants across all our parks. We hope to complete it in the next financial year," Chittilappilly told businessline.

Non-ticket revenue remains a focus for the company. Chittilappilly mentioned, "We do a lot of events, festivals, carnivals, for example, in the fourth quarter, we have Holi, Women’s Day, Valentine’s Day. We engage in various activities to ensure we get many special bookings on those days."

The company is preparing to announce new projects in Indore and Mohali, with plans to finalize something in the NCR region. Chittilappilly stated that the team is actively pursuing these projects, expecting one or two to be operational within the next year.

Wonderla Holidays, known for its amusement parks in Kochi, Bangalore, and Hyderabad, along with a resort in Bangalore, plans to hire 500 employees for the new park in Bhubaneswar, which is set to open in the next six months.

Discussing the decline in net profit in the third quarter compared to the same period last year, Chittilappilly attributed it to increased employee costs due to recent hiring. He also mentioned a decrease in EBITDA margin due to higher sales promotion and marketing costs.

Wonderla reported a profit of ₹37.35 crore for the third quarter of FY24, down by 4.08 per cent compared to the same quarter last year. Despite this, revenue from operations grew by 9.15 per cent to ₹123.55 crore from ₹113.19 crore in the same quarter last year.

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