|
Alton Towers Resort, commonly referred to as Alton Towers, is a theme park, water park, and hotel complex in Staffordshire, England. It is the flagship attraction of Merlin Entertainments in the United Kingdom. The site opened in 1860 with flower shows and garden tours until a theme park was built on the site in 1980. Alton Towers Theme Park opened on 4 April 1980. Major attractions include Nemesis, Oblivion, Air, Runaway Mine Train, Congo River Rapids, Hex – The Legend of the Towers, Rita, Thirteen and The Smiler. Alton Towers is known for creating new ride types when it comes to roller coasters. They have a line of 'Secret Weapon' rides which usually bring something new to the industry. The Alton Towers Waterpark opened in June 2003. It consists of several pools and slides including the Master Blaster water coaster. The waterpark, along with the adjoined Splash Landings Hotel, carries a tropical Caribbean theme with the 'Paradise Plumbers' creating the slides. The Theme Park opens at 9am and closes from 4:30pm at the earliest to 7pm at the latest during the main season (excluding Concert nights, Scarefest and Fireworks) with selected rides, then from 10am onwards the rest of the Theme Park will start to open. During Scarefest and Fireworks the Theme Park opens at 9:30am and closes at 9pm due to the number of people that visit the two events. == History == (詳細はEarl of Shrewsbury. Following its sale in 1924 a group of local businessmen formed Alton Towers Ltd and began to restore the gardens as a tourist attraction.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title= Gardens and Grounds )〕 In the 1950s this included the operation of a fairground, and by the 1970s included a boating lake and chairlift. After millionaire property developer John Broome married the daughter of majority shareholder Denis Bagshaw in 1973, he bought out the controlling stake in Alton Towers. Over the next few years he laid the foundation for the modern theme park by installing various permanent rides and developing areas of the grounds in progressive stages. In the 1980s Broome marketed the park by installing a major new ride every year - including Corkscrew, Pirate Ship, Alpine Bobsleigh, The Flume and The Black Hole. With Broome in financial troubles having acquired the former Battersea Power Station for development as a tourist attraction, in 1990 the park was purchased by The Tussauds Group, which itself was owned by Pearson Group. The change of ownership heralded an era of sustained investment and aggressive marketing based around the US theme park model epitomised by Disneyland, involving the development of major family-oriented attractions such as Runaway Mine Train (1992), The Haunted House (1992, now Duel), Toyland Tours (1994) and Peter Rabbit and Friends On Ice (1994), alongside state-of-the-art, high-intensity rides such as Nemesis (1994, Europe's first inverted roller coaster). However, Tussauds subsequently reoriented the resort's business strategy towards the teenage market with the introduction of Oblivion (1998, a B&M Dive Coaster) and Air (2002, a B&M Flying Coaster), both marketed for their innovative 'World First' ride elements and restoring, to a degree, the youth credibility it had established in the 1980s. Ride designer John Wardley was behind the concepts and layouts of the major attractions in the 1990s that brought success to the themepark. 2005 saw the acquisition of Alton Towers by the investment group Dubai International Capital (DIC) when it purchased Tussauds for £800 million. The Tussauds Group was then bought by Merlin Entertainments in March 2007 for over £1billion from DIC, placing Alton Towers under their control. In July 2007, the resort and park was sold to Nick Leslau and his investment firm Prestbury who now lease the park back to Merlin Entertainments to operate on a 35-year lease. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Alton Towers」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|