Water World
Water World Ocean Park Hong Kong

Ocean Park Corporation’s Strategic Realignment on the Right Track

2021-10-27

Ocean Park Corporation today reported its financial results and activity highlights for the 2020/2021 fiscal year, which saw its strategic realignment efforts create fresh opportunities.
 
During the fiscal year ended on 30 June 2021, Ocean Park Corporation continued to face strong headwinds from the COVID-19 pandemic. In accordance with Government mandates, the Park temporarily closed for 40% of the fiscal year or 146 days between 1 July 2020 and 17 February 2021. The closure completely cut off the source of revenues from visitors. The Park reopened on 18 February 2021, though at severely limited capacities with primarily local visitations.    
 
These challenges resulted in a sharp 36% plunge in visitor attendance to 1.4 million and a 45% drop in revenue to HK$393.6 million compared to the previous fiscal year. Ocean Park Corporation recorded a net operating deficit of HK$1,111.6 million before netting off with the Government’s funding support received in the fiscal year.
 
Ocean Park Corporation took proactive steps to rein in costs and streamline budget management to counter business disruptions brought by the pandemic. It also repositioned its offerings and tapped into market opportunities triggered by the new normal of enhanced health awareness and social distancing protocols.
 
“Despite a continuing difficult operating environment, we reimagined the Ocean Park experience with creativity and experimented with new concepts that leveraged the infinite potentials of the Park’s unique setting. As a result, we attracted new visitors, including health, sports and fitness enthusiasts, nature adventurers, pet lovers, plant and flower enthusiasts, and more. The immense public enthusiasm of our new attempts showed that the Park is on the right path,” said Ivan Wong Chi-fai, Chief Executive of Ocean Park Corporation.
 
“Equally encouraging was the extraordinary conservation and education work that our team delivered amid various COVID-19 restrictions. We are glad to have demonstrated Ocean Park Corporation’s commitment and value to the community in trying times,” continued Wong.  
 
In 2020/2021, with nature as an underlying theme, the Park launched its highly popular Green Staycation programme, and hosted children and their parents at the biggest and best outdoor nature playground for experiential learning. It also pioneered a city-wide conservation programme that mobilised some 50,000 students to preserve three local species.
 
“We are extremely grateful to the Government for its funding support and for formulating  Ocean Park’s future strategy together, these not only enabled the Ocean Park Corporation to maintain its operations and launch Water World Ocean Park but also to reinvent itself as a new resort and leisure destination,” added Wong. 
 
In August 2021, Ocean Park Corporation issued a pre-qualification invitation as the first phase of a procurement exercise to solicit potential partners to co-develop the Park through a Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) model. The second phase — the Tender stage — will commence in late 2021 or early 2022. Ocean Park Corporation aims to build a partner community that shares its vision on conservation and education and execute its future strategy.