Terra Mitica Tumbles

According to the annual audit figures released this week, the Terra Mitica theme park near Benidorm lost 101,000 visitors during 2008 compared to the previous year.

During the whole of last year, the park recorded 1.01 million visitors; this number represents a 10 per cent drop in attendance on the year before.  Sources at the park attribute the downturn not only to the global economic crisis but also the adverse weather experienced during last Easter, the ‘Bridge’ (Puente) in May and throughout the greater part of June.

The reduction in the number of people going through the gates translates into an operating loss of around 3.2 million euros.  The total losses of the Terra Mitica consortium, which includes the banks and the Valencian Government, amount to over 15 million euros to date.  The unhappy state of affairs was given at the General Shareholders meeting earlier this week, where the Board were also unanimous in agreeing not to replace the former Chief Executive Officer John Fitzgerald, who left last year.

Opposition spokesperson Jose Camarasa didn’t miss an opportunity to have a ‘pop’ at the current administration by saying, “The results of the last year just confirm the poor state of the company structure and finances controlled by the PP.” He went on to say, “It is inappropriate to just leave the running of the business to chance and a flawed business model which is evidently neither profitable nor strategic.”  He described the amusement park as, “An illusion created by vanishing money.”