SeaWorld still aims to reverse visitor, revenue declines

For a theme park company that easily could have been financially mauled by years of bad publicity, SeaWorld Entertainment is showing surprising resilience.

Forced to reinvent itself without its star orca attraction, the theme park company on Tuesday released preliminary performance numbers for 2016 that show a modest drop in both theme park attendance and revenues. The figures are down, but apparently solid enough to ease the fears of investors. SeaWorld shares closed Tuesday at $19.31 apiece. That’s close to where the stock price traded at the start of this year.

That’s respectable, barely, under the circumstances. SeaWorld’s stock trades at about half of what it was in 2013, just before the Blackfish documentary critical of SeaWorld’s treatment of orca whales in captivity hit a nerve with the public. That 90-minute film also spotlighted the 2010 tragedy at SeaWorld when, during a $30-a-plate “Dine With Shamu” show, a 6-ton orca named Tilikum killed its trainer. (Tilikum, the largest and best known of SeaWorld’s killer whales, died in January at the age of 36.)

Now SeaWorld is testing ways to attract enough visitors for a $99 or so admission fee with more of a Mother Nature theme but without the (literal) splash and pizzazz of Shamu-styled killer whale shows.

Moody’s, which tracks the financial health of SeaWorld Entertainment, captures the theme park company’s challenge in an analysis published Tuesday.

“The change of its killer whale show to a natural based encounter and the ending of breeding in captivity has helped reduce negative publicity, but it is uncertain how customers will respond to the new natural based orca exhibit that will be launched in the spring of 2017 at its San Diego park.”

SeaWorld Entertainment reported 22 million visitors in its preliminary 2016 results. That is down from 22.5 million visitors to its parks in 2015.

The company also said that it expects 2016 revenues of $1.34 billion compared to $1.37 billion reported in 2015 and $1.38 billion in 2014. SeaWorld Entertainment, whose dozen theme park holdings include Busch Gardens Tampa Bay, is scheduled to report official earnings for 2016 and the fourth quarter next week.

The preview of SeaWorld’s quarterly results comes weeks after Walt Disney World said it would increase the price on tickets (they will now range from $99 to $124 for a one-day visit). Comcast, parent of Orlando’s Universal theme parks and its wildly successful Harry Potter franchise, soon followed Disney by raising its single-day admission by $5 and its park-to-park tickets by $10.

SeaWorld historically has followed such ticket hikes in Orlando. Not this time. It will no longer mimic the big theme park competitors, according to SeaWorld CEO Joel Manby. That means SeaWorld is unlikely to budge past its $99 single-day ticket price anytime soon.

Surely, SeaWorld still has some smart salvaging still to go. It better. Until declines in attendance and revenues come to an end, it’s all hands on the theme park deck.