Has the economic slowdown cast a shadow on the amusement industry? Adlabs Entertainment posted weak quarterly earnings with higher costs denting margins. In an interview to Bloomberg TV India, Adlabs CEO and Director Kapil Bagla says the company will end the year with at least 50 per cent higher revenues.
How have the footfalls been in the quarter gone by?
For the second quarter, 60 per cent of our footfalls were contributed by Imagica and 40 per cent by Aquamagica.
For the theme park, our average realisation, which is ARPU (average revenue per user), is roughly ₹1,850 and for the water park Aquamagica, it is ₹1,200. Out of this, about 72 per cent is contributed by way of ticketing revenue and 28 per cent by non-ticketing revenue, which is food and beverages (F&B) and merchandising. In the coming quarters, we hope to increase the ARPU and the share of non-ticketing revenue. Obviously, during the season time, our ARPU tends to be better.
The launch of Novotel also happened this quarter. The average occupancy is about 77 per cent. Do you see that improving?
Yes, we are entering season time now. So I think the demand will pick up. Normally, hotels do very well between November and February. So at our Novotel, we have a mixed clientele, both from corporate and social events — we have enquires for weddings. There are a lot of people asking for a combination of water park, theme park and Novotel. We will keep on adding rooms in this half to take it up to 287 rooms by March 2016.
Can you give us some details of your capex plan?
I think the snow park project is developing well, with construction in full swing. We hope to complete it by January and launch it by the end of that month.
What about guidance?
The only thing that I can say is that we have done about 7.9 lakh footfalls in first half of FY16. Historically, in the last two years, we have seen that about 60-62 per cent of our footfalls come in the second half. So, if we see that trend continuing this year, we should end the year with at least 50 per cent higher revenues than the previous year. That’s what we are gunning for.