Impacts of POLW on Singapore

Hi dear! This would my last entry, i will be sharing with you on the impacts of Ports of Lost Wonder on Singapore. Hope you will enjoy reading this post!:)

The impacts that POLW as an attraction has impacted on Singapore would be based on the following impacts -economic, environmental and social cultural impact.

Firstly, POLW has impacted Singapore economically positively through the income and job creation factors. When more tourists visit Singapore, Singapore would earn more income revenue. This would then result in the increase in tourism dollars under the foreign exchange. Secondly, tax will also be paid by employees and employers and gross domestic product(GST) will be paid on goods and services purchased. The income is also earned thirdly from the visitor expenditure where there will be a multiplier impact within the local and regional economies. The next factor that would impact Singapore economic in a positive way would be there would be more employment opportunities, as there will be an increase in job creation due to the open of the new attraction- PLOW.

In contrast, PLOW has also jolt Singapore economic impact in a negative way. This is because of the seasonal nature of the demand for attractions are also meant that there will only be seasonal jobs offered. Secondly, the attractions are part of the service sector, which meant that these jobs are often poorly paid jobs. The cost of the maintaining the attraction can be high and the impact will be compounded by the poor funding available to attractions. Lastly, there will also be an opportunity cost of using government funds to support attractions.

Secondly, POLW has also impacted Singapore environmentally in a negative way because the impact on man-made attractions, which currently POLW is one of them, will cause pollution and erosion due to construction and building of the attraction going on. Not only that, POLW will also be a negative environmental impact on Singapore because there might be a lot of rubbish that is thrown by the consumers. Wear and tear is also another factor that is caused by touching as human sweat can cause corrosion on some materials.  This would then become critical to manage visitor traffic and behaviour in order to minimise all the negative impacts. Additionally, the negative impact that POLW will affect the environment would be that, by building all these attraction, the natural environment would also be destroyed and disrupted during the construction.

Lastly, PLOW has impacted Singapore on the social cultural impact. Those attractions that have a purpose to be build for tourism will have both negative and positive impacts on the environment. The negative impact would be on the local community and local culture. For example like casino and gambling. Further on, there would be a difference in the perception that the attraction does will not reflect the needs and the desires of the local community. The positive impact on the social cultural impact would be there would be accessibility of the attraction to the locals. There will also be an impact on the real and perceived benefits of the attraction in terms of what locals can enjoy and what benefits can be derived from the locals.

Haha, so i have come to the end of today's entry! Till then ! 

Do take care of yourself alright? :) I hope you will come over soon:)

References used for all this post.

Port of Lost Wonders . (0001, June 14). . Retrieved , from http://www.tripadvisor.com.sg/Attraction_Review-g294264-d3530841-Reviews-Port_Of_Lost_Wonder-Sentosa_Island.html

Port of Lost Wonders . (2011, January 1). . Retrieved , from http://www.sentosa.com.sg/en/attractions/beaches/port-of-lost-wonder/

Port of Lost Wonders . (2013, January 1). . Retrieved , from http://www.polw.com.sg/

Lecture Notes chapter 1-3

POLW slides 

Personal Thoughts

Hey Ash :) I really hope you do enjoy my entries so far! Today i will share with you more about my own personal opinions on POLW after visiting the site with my friends! 

In my opinion, I think that Ports of Lost Wonder is an attraction that has the potential to become very successful. The first reason is because there were lots of considerations and planning made before starting this attraction.  Before this attraction existed, the management team gathers lots of feedback from parents, children as well as their very sentosa staff. From all of the feedback's that the team gathered, they then started this attraction. Furthermore, it has the potential to be successful because during the site visit, I heard from the POLW employee who brought us on a tour at the area said that, tourist are actually travelling over to Singapore because they would want to experience what POLW feels like. Not only that, POLW is also known as a kids club at a beach, thus this would encourage more people in visiting this attraction. POLW admission tickets are also affordable thus this would increase visitors or even locals to head over to the attraction. Additionally, there are also further plans for this attraction to have further development thus when POLW has been expanded, more visitors and locals will come and enjoy it thus it would become more successful.

POLW has also met the needs of the visitors by gathering all the feedback's that they have receive and transform their dreams into a real man-made attraction. Some of the feedback's will be such as parents desire simplicity, assurance, independence and connectedness. Thus, definitely PLOW has met their needs, as it is a place that can give parents a lot of assurance and connectedness. They also met the needs of the visitors by geographical factor, which is by making this theme park to be very accessible.  There are also developments of public transport and some transport modes have became an attraction just like our own tram where tourist usually would board it to have an experience.
Tourist do not need to waste time on travelling and also the cost of travelling to reach the theme park because you just have to take a tram from the beach station and you would reach. If some of the visitors do not want to wait, they are also able to reach there by walking distance.

Secondly, they also met the needs of the visitors by providing them with satisfying services. They also had built trust with their customers. This can be seen based on some of the reviews that I have found online on POLW, many tourists said that the staffs at POLW are “Very professional staff well verse in 1st-aid and creating fun for the children. Parents can feel very assured of the safety of their children when they are here. “ The attraction also met the needs of the visitors as it created a lot of fun and joy in many tourist. Another review shows that POWL is a wonder for kids and also for families and also states that definitely parents who have kids should not hesitate to bring them there. I also read a review stating that the customer still enjoys the attraction even after being there twice. By having all this excellent reviews, these shows that POLW had definitely brought many unforgettable memories to many people and satisfy their expectations.

Some of the reviews that i have found ! :)

 I felt that POLW had been successful in promoting themselves because they have organised a lot of programs especially during the children’s holiday as well as other festivals and celebrations. Apart from that, although POLW existed for about only 2 years, it has gained a lot of visitor’s and re-visitorship. Not only that this attraction attracts the children, it has also attracted adults to celebrate their birthday there for example, there was an adult who celebrated his 21 years old birthday party over there.

POLW have also been successful in promoting itself because they had collaborated with many island partners. Some of the island partners, which POLW had collaborated, would be sponsorship, cross marketing, enhance guest’s experience on the island example like hotels and resorts.

Lastly, they have also been successful in promoting itself  because of the POLW membership! In order to become a POLW member, customers would just need to pay $120 dollars for each of their child who are 12 years and younger. The benefits of it would be there will be a free admission to POLW year-round. You will be given starter packs that have a port pass and 100 curios and an exclusive POLW children’s towel. There will also be a free entrance on day of membership registration and priority access to enter POLW. There will also be free members meal with ever purchase of an adult meal, merchandise discounts of 5% at just wonder, celebration packages discounts for 10%, merchant partners discount, POLW flash where you can get free admission into selected attractions in Sentosa and lastly you could even bring a friend for free during the members birthday! With all this, this could help to increase re-visitorship! 

The benefits of a POLW member

Hope you enjoyed this entry and i hope i had help you in some way :)

Challenges which POLW faces

Each attraction would definitely have its challenges. So what is POLW’s challenge? One of the POLW challenges would be its labour intense. POLW is facing perishability where there is a shortage of labour workers because of working preferences  Many do not likes to work under the sun for many hours. Its labour is also very tiring because their job scope if not only standing under the sun, they will also have to entertain the kids and play with them which some people does not enjoy.

The second challenge which POLW faces would be having more novel ideas for programming and events. In order to maintain customer satisfaction and being differentiated among its competitors at Sentosa, they have to always continue and organises more programmes and events to bring in more crowd and maintain satisfaction among its existing competitors. They would also have to organise more activities to attract more children, as this will allow their target market to look forward each time coming to the attraction.

Space constraint is also another factor that POLW challenge. POLW is now situated at a small area at Palawan beach. As there is only limited amount of space which POLW have, there is  only limited types of activities being able to be conducted over there. With the limited space that POLW have, they are also not able to take in large amount of visitors at a time and also hold large scale events. For example, some of the corporate companies who would like to hold events there might also be unable because the some of the companies has over thousands of employees which definitely POLW cannot take. This would then decrease POLW chances of earning back a higher revenue. Another one would be the existing area which POLW would have a programme called BBQ under the stars, due to its space constraint, there is only a limited amount of people who are interested are able to conduct their mini parties or get together.

Apart from that,  another challenged that POLW will face in the near future will be facing a higher chance of having a decrease in the number of visitors due to the small attraction. 
POLW which is a man-made attraction for visitors will face would be able to sustain to meet the needs and satisfying its customers in a long run. It is because the product life cycle is relatively shorter and customers might be easily bored of the attraction if there is no changes made in the attraction because humans tends to get bored easily.The companies also have to pay off the investment before investing more on expensive relaunches. Thus , it might be a difficulty to borrow capital over along time period.

 If POLW did not make any improvement within the attraction, there will be a decrease in existing customers as well as first timers. Hence, they will also loose to the others attractions over at Sentosa.

The last challenged which POLW would faced will be maintaining customers satisfaction as judges the quality of product which is given to them. As a service product, there is no chances to return or exchange a product especially since attraction production is an experience. Thus, it is important that POLW staffs have good attitudes and behaviour. Additionally  to also have a pure and gold heart and its willing to go to the extend to serve their customers and brings a smile onto their faces. This is because when  once a deliverer gives a bad experience to the customers, it is would definitely harm the company’s reputation.

Yup, so that is all for today :) Miss you !