5th International Conference on Social Science, Education and Humanities Research (SSEHR 2016)

Landscape Design and Research of Future Urban Theme

Parks
Junqiao Shi
Panzhihua University,Sichuan, China
[email protected]

Keywords : City Theme Park; Problematic Follow-up Development; Future

Development Trend

Abstract. City Theme Park in the future focuses its the final service objects on people,
developing the unique connotation and landscape environment full of rich experience
in order to adapt to the future development trend of urban theme parks and maintain
the momentum of sustainable development. City Theme Park is a wonderful place
which expresses people’s best wish of the economic life and spiritual culture. And the
landscape characteristic of the future City Theme Park is the necessary condition to
shape the window-effect of the city. Future City Theme Park, as the perceived image
of urban culture and regional culture need to achieve the win-win benefits between
economy and culture and orientate cultural characteristics of the theme precisely so as
to create City Theme Park successfully in accord with the needs of the times.

1.Introduction
City Theme Park is originated in the United States in 1955. Walt Disney, an
American with his outstanding creativity successfully established the world’s first
theme park, Disneyland in Los Angeles, California. Since it integrates recreation,
scientific Expo, community centers and theatrical performances as a whole,
Disneyland is a good place of beauty and wonders for the parents and children to
enjoy and share the family happiness, which has attracted a large number of tourists
from home and abroad. Thus it has obtained a huge success. The success of Disney
has stimulated the development of theme parks around the world, such as the
Madurodam in Netherlands, The Seagaia Ocean Dome (located in the city of
Miyazaki on the Japanese island of Kyushu), the Marine World of the Gold Coast in
Australia, Sentosa in Singapore, EverLand in South Korea and Ocean Park in
Hongkong, all of which have achieved great success. The global theme parks are
classified as categories shown in the following Table 1

Classification of Global Theme Parks

Themes Classification Functions Classification

traditions and national cultures theme parks for appreciation of
demonstrating theme parks stationary scenes
animals and plants appreciation theme parks for appreciation of
theme parks stationary scenes
Exotic Theme Parks Demonstrating Theme Parks
Literature and Cultural heritage Activity Theme Parks
Theme Parks
Film and Television Theme Parks Challenging Entertainments Theme
parks
Table 1 Classification of Global Theme Parks

© 2016. The authors - Published by Atlantis Press 1095

2.Innovation Shortage Reflected among Most of the Theme Parks landscape
design
Theme is the soul of theme parks and innovation is the life of the theme park.
Theme park needs to highlight the theme, along with the distinctive features, such as
the “Universal Studios” in Hollywood. The reason of its forever prosperity is that
with an irreplaceable unique personality, it represents the Hollywood film and
television entertainment culture. If lacking characteristics and imitating the
construction from every aspect, the theme park will be similar to each other and
inevitably distract tourists, thus making themselves difficult to escape failure. This is
precisely the most fundamental reason for the loss or even bankruptcy of most of
theme parks around the world in the 1990s.

3.The Passive Management Mode Adoption

Passive management mode is the main reason why many theme parks cannot
achieve sustainable development. For example, the majority of Chinese theme park
adopts the passive management mode, but not requires every tourist to participate in
the performance.The large performances in OCT in Shenzhen, China, every night
attract a large number of visitors to enjoy. It is obvious that the large show can benefit
from this mode of operation. On the one hand, if the tourists only want to watch, they
will stay for a period of time in the park in order to save energy. Then visitors will
naturally have dietary demands when lingering for a long time, thus resulting in more
economic benefits. On the other hand, the per capita area needed by tourists when
watching is smaller than that of participation in the performance, which in all is
conducive to accommodate more visitors in each venue. But there is a drawback: just
watching without participation in activities can not maintain the long-term interest of
tourists.

4.The Problematic Follow-up Development in Most of the Theme Park landscape

design
An artificial lake surface area of Disneyland, in Los Angeles, America is 150
acres larger than that of Shanghai Xijiao Park. In addition, it nurtured the forest and
swamp full of many waterfowl and aquatic animals with an area of 30 square
kilometers carefully. In 1970s, Singapore opened up 4272 mu with 41 kilometers
length from east to west, 25 km width from north to south in the expensive land in
order to complete the construction of Sentosa Theme Park with tens of millions
investments. And then it set up more than 100 hectares of land to build the Crocodile
Park and the world’s largest bird park. However, this was just one of the successful
cases. Comparatively speaking, China’s theme park started late and most investment
of the project is relatively small, limiting the park’s subsequent development
potentials. The product can not update timely with the progress of science and
technology and the changing speed of the visitors’ interests. The following
suggestions are put forward targeting at the subsequent development of the theme
park landscape design, (see Table 2).

The following development measures of theme park landscape design

Sort out the landscape spatial pattern and increase open activities according to
different seasons.
Make good adjustment for the theme park landscape according to the new
experiencing and participating games.

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 To gradually improve the landscape system of theme parks by integrating the
scattered scenic spots.
In the subsequent development of landscape designs of the theme park, more
attention should be paid to creativity and exploring historical and cultures.
(Table 2 the following development measures for the landscape design of the
theme park)

5.The Future Development Trend of Urban Theme Park

5.1 Part One The Creation of a More In-depth Small Theme Park
Future Theme Parks in the cities develop towards miniaturization-direction
which is more practical and easier to achieve success. Small theme park in the city,
though less rich in park contents, less investment and shorter construction period than
the large theme park, digs deeper into the theme of each side and adjusts quickly into
the direction according to changes in public taste and it has the characteristics of
delicacy and flexibility.
The miniaturization of theme park does not mean the reduction in
connotation capacity of the theme, so in order to improve the subject form, in-depth
themes exploration is still needed. Most of the urban theme construction are subject to
the restrictions of capital, scale, type of facilities and technical level. Therefore, it is
necessary to avoid weaknesses in the theme development and make full use of local
rich cultural resources, relying on the carrier of local culture to reflect the social level
and connotation.

5.2 Part Two The Creation of the More Distinctive Featured City Theme Park
With the high threshold of city theme park investment, expensive tickets, poor
duplicate tourism and the high requirement for theme selection, especially the need of
the idea of market value, the failure rate is quite high. And the city theme park based
on the local cultural characteristics featured with the low input, is in accordance with
the the residents’ needs to improve their lives. If we can integrate the local culture
into the construction of the city and present the park via the form of tourism products,
then the operation of future city theme park will be very unique. However, the
construction of a city’s theme park, from planning, construction to maturity, needs for
a longer time. Therefore, During the process of operation, anxiousness for success
should be avoided. In order to achieve a good effect, it is an important part to grasp
market trend .

5.3 Part Three The Creation of a Larger Online Theme Park Market
The 21st century has witnessed rapid development of Chinese network. The
network has had many unique advantages, making it become another emerging power
in addition to the traditional media. Theme parks can use the advantages of the
network to develop their own strengths. In 2004, in order to match the grand game
“world of legend”, Songcheng group jointed with China’s largest online-games
company, reformed the park which costed the song city’s tens of millions investment.
This led to the interest of many game users. This move not only attracted the
competing reports from a large number of online games industries, but also attracted
the attention of the tourism industry. While the overall tourism image of Hangzhou
has also been enhanced greatly. More importantly, such a combination indicates that
China’s theme park can be a breakthrough in the network game and bring new vitality
to Chinese theme park in plight.

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5.4 Part Four The Industrialization of City Theme Park
Disneyland, as a model of the world theme park, is an everlasting paradise. For
many years, Disneyland has been adhering to the principle of “Three-thirds system”
which is the elimination of one-third hardware equipment and the establishment of
one-third new concept project. Around Disney, a large sports center, many theme
hotels, golf club and tennis courts, swimming pool, restaurants and shopping center
are constructed there, forming an entirety, thus this has greatly enhanced the Disney
World attraction as a tourist destination. Therefore, the development of the future city
theme park, must be want of strong economic enterprise groups to carry out industrial
expansion and take the scale of operation, industrial management and diversified
business road.

6 .Summary
At present, city theme park is not completely out of predicament. In order to get
rid of this situation and win in the fierce market competition, survive and gain profit,
the future city theme park must be developed innovatively. In order to breakthrough
the bottleneck of its development, the problem must be analyzed one by one. Only in
this way, can the problem be solved and a new life be gained.

References
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[4]Zhang Xiao-zhen.The Problems and Development Countermeasures of the theme
parks in China[J] (in Chinese).Reform and strategy, 2004(4): 54-56.

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