‘We give visitors what is commensurate with theme parks in developed world’

With huge investments in world-class attractions and sustained maintenance, Hi-Impact Planet on Km 12 Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, is unarguably, the biggest theme park in Nigeria and West Africa. Prince Adeyanju Lipede, chairman, Hi-Impact Planet Nigeria; a subsidiary of Solution Media & Infotech Limited, speaks to Obinna Emelike on efforts at turning the park into a destination, new rides, improving visitors’ traffic and challenges. Excerpt.

Has the park lived up to visitors’ expectations so far?

Let me first say that Nigerians are not particularly used to the amusement thing or mentality and the current campaign for believe in our thing is a gradual process, which this government is trying to put together. What you get is that what Nigerians will not do or ask for when they are outside here is what they ask for here. What we have done is to give visitors exactly what is commensurate with parks of its like in the developed world.

We have given a world class amusement park and we want to maintain it not only in terms of infrastructure, but also in terms of management of the place.

In Nigeria, we have peculiarities. There is no power, and even when the power is here, you cannot really on it. For the safety of our people, what we have done is to now generate electricity per ride so that even if we have a challenge, the entire system will not be shot down. That is the point.

We have also included an inverter so that even if there is a challenge, the inverter will get you back safely to ground zero. These are some of the things we have put in place. In terms of the sources of our rides, they are European standard. There is no Chinese ride here, what we have put in place are all European and American rides and attractions. In addition to that, we are particular about the safety of our guests either in coming in as you can see from the entrance or in terms of on the ride. So, we adopt world best practice in safety.

What kept the park moving for almost two years now?

It is important that when you start a business, you have to understand the principles as to make a success of it. You learn from the historical performance of your competitors, you look at how to ensure that you do not make the same mistakes they have made; you improve on whatever they have done, and succeeded by doing so. Those are the things you put together.

One of the problems of Nigeria is that they say we don’t have maintenance culture. As far as we are concerned, the rides and the maintenance, which is also about the safety, is the reason we are still running. Every month we itemize whatever we want to do, in a quarter we try to give and set ourselves goals. Rather than shrink, we expand. If you were here in 2016 December and you are here today, you marvel at what is on ground. Between that time and now, we have added something in the range of seven rides. On June24, 2017, we commissioned three rides; they are water related and volcano. The first one is a flume ride which is about the biggest that you have around, and the other is Hip Pool. The rationale for the new rides is to offer Nigerians and children something unique.

What are the peculiar challenges of the amusement park?

However, there is a challenge because government is not giving us that kind of support we need. We have challenges at the ports getting in all our things, we have a description challenge in terms of the codification of the items we are bringing in and delays which make us pay unnecessary demurrage and taxes amidst stress.

If government is serious about tourism they will give us incentives to be in it. Everyday you have tax people coming even when you are work in progress still setting up your business, then they want you to do corporate social responsibility (CSR) for the people around here, which is what we are trying to do. It is a very tough terrain, but it is getting better.

Going by the quality of your attractions, are the charges commensurable with the experiences?

People will tell you, it is expensive and I ask them what is expensive. The price we charged in 2016 December is what we are charging in June-July 2017. Even with all the depreciation and inflation and the cost increases within those periods, we have not related that to the price we charge customers.

But if we don’t charge appropriate price, we are not going to make enough money to buy the spare parts, to maintain the rides, and ensure that people are safe.

Now, we have moved from just an amusement park, we have turned it into giving accommodation. It is longer just an amusement park, but a resort.

We have facilities in terms that you can come in and bring your children to have an adventure. There is no amusement park of this caliber that is in town, they are always out of town. So, that is why we have to come out of the town, we want you to have an adventure, we want your children to have an anxiety over night, wake up at 3am instead of 6am and say mummy when are we going, you will tell them to go back to sleep, but they insist Mummy are we going to Hi Impact tomorrow, Daddy are we going and at 1 am they are ready. That is the fun, that is the thrilling, and that is the adventure that we give to the children when they come here. This park is made for children from two years to infinity. You will always have something to take care of your age bracket, even for those that are not as adventurous and afraid of height.  We have simulators that will give you something that will make you happy without going on any height. That is what keeps us in business.

How have you sustained your maintenance to ensure safety and visitor’s confidence?

We have exposed all our team leads and members to what operates all over the world. They have visited and seen how it is being run, we have trained them in technical expertise in maintenance, we made sure that our Nigerian engineers were part of the installation here to enable them to be in the best position to maintain and repair where necessary.

There is a huge difference between maintenance and repairs.

We are able to do routine maintenance.  For major repairs, we still have a relationship with all the technical suppliers to carry out the repairs.