Dash for bigger splash

With three more distinguishing features soon to join its fold, the one-of-its-kind water-based entertainment facility in Qatar is all set to enhance its standing as a truly unique entertainment destination in the country.The Aqua Park, situated on a 20-minute drive from downtown Doha on Salwa Road, is adding a giant Stingray Surfing Machine to its already available 14 attractions. The park is also getting a hotel, complete with residential villas and rooms, and a medical spa facility.Up and running most likely by early next year, the hotel will be additional to the Aqua Park 2 extension plan which aims at making it an exceptional indoor and outdoor amusement park combined with a shopping mall.“In line with future expansion, we are coming up with a hotel. It is an Aqua Park product but it is going to be managed by a hotel company. It will be an extension of our project and we are going to complement each other,” Mohamed Firdaus Raj, General Manager Aqua Park, told Community in an interview after the grand opening of the Aqua Park.The hotel will have about 90 villas and about 100 rooms besides the medical spa facilities. It is going to be operational by early next year and once that is ready the park will also have a different change in operations. They would probably be open throughout the year because from the hotel, they would have visitors to cater to.Apart from the surfing machine this year, they are also considering the Aqua Park 2. “The idea is (to have) outdoor and indoor amusement along with a shopping mall combined with entertainment and F&B. We are planning to make it a unique entertainment destination for people,” says Raj.As the park opened this April for the season, it is all set to provide its visitors with more food facilities, one area where it had been lagging behind. By this Eid-al-Fitr, the management hopes it would have restaurants offering Indian food and that most of the vacant restaurants would be operational.“We have fast food restaurants and food kiosks. But we know that this is one weak point. So we are trying to get some new operators to take over some of the restaurants that are still lying vacant. We are also going to provide Indian food. We are hoping to get Retaj, a hotel company, to take over the main restaurant,” says the General Manager.Aqua Park Qatar, the first ever theme park in Qatar is built on an area of 50,000 sq. metres of action-packed water fun. Featuring a mammoth play area, the giant 2,000 gallon tipping bucket, enormous 4 storey high water slides, the full-sized wave pool, and a 200m long lazy river, the Aqua Park has all the ingredients that would allow you to set the tempo for your day out.With more than 14 exhilarating water attractions, Aqua Park is a perfect combo where you can ride-slide, splish-splash and sleep-relax to make your day a memorable one.“At Aqua Park, we have 14 attractions and we are almost completing our latest attraction which is Stingray Surf Machine and we expect it would be up sometime in May. It is going to be very new for Qatar and we are hoping this attraction will provide new experiences to people,” says Raj.For a theme park, they have all the elements that a theme park should generally have. They have wave pool, a river, a tower complex which comprises 6-7 slides. For children, there are African Village and Kids’ Pirate Boat especially designed for children and teenagers.Two years ago, the Park also introduced two more attractions for children which is bumper boat and kids’ driving school which is not a water-based experience and it is for those children who want to experience driving around with a complete feel of the roads. It is an educational activity.The Park operates from April to November. The reason they are close between November and March is that the weather gets colder and even though they heat the pool, the response is not great because the environment is still cold, says Raj.Among their audience, 60 percent are adults and 40 percent children. There is also a big bachelor market. The park also focuses on schools with special packages for schools and educational institutions.“Forty percent is a very high ratio for children in a theme park. Our market is local. For 80 to 90 percent, we rely on the local market and 10 percent comes from Saudi Arabia. People from Saudi mostly come during Eid breaks and other special occasions,” Raj reveals.The Park, he adds, has a very big Filipino audience. Almost 40 percent of our audience comprises Filipinos. The other two bigger audiences come from the Indian community and people from the GCC countries.“On average, we get almost 1,50,000 visitors in a season. The weekdays are not very high. We get almost 100-150 on weekdays but the business is always on the weekends from Thursdays to Saturdays,” says Raj.“Friday is open day on which we allow bachelors and families and Saturday is only for families. Every Tuesday is Ladies day. These are the peak days. Last Tuesday on Ladies day, we received some 1,500 ladies and last Friday we had 1,800 people. Friday is always the strongest day for us to cover weekdays,” he adds.This is a first of its kind water park in Qatar so everything that they have here is a huge attraction for people, says Raj. They tried hosting events, but people are not interested if somebody is singing on the stage. The mindset, he explains, is that we have paid this much so we should enjoy all the 14 attractions there.People on average spend 4-5 hours indulging themselves in water activities, having food and taking pictures.The park has a super market and they provide lockers and other safety facilities free of charge. It also has 40 life guards deputed wherever needed. Raj says they are also trying to develop a mobile app to get close to the visitors.“If they have any complaints, comments or suggestions, they can use this channel which will be in addition to the manual channel that we already have in place. The visitors’ feedback is very important to us,” says the GM. The park is now taking visitors and the frequency is going to increase in the coming months.