For this particular Monday, Liseberg’s chairman Kurt Eliasson (S) had called a board meeting to review the annual report for 2023, and Liseberg’s future finances.
The members would have gathered after lunch at the new, own, hotel Grand Curiuosa in Gothenburg. But the big fire of course made all that impossible, instead the staff at the hotel, which Liseberg inaugurated last spring, had to focus on evacuating their guests. The Oceana water park is located side by side.
The hotel and the water park together make up what is known as the Jubilee project, linked to the fact that the municipally owned amusement park turned 100 years old last year.
The budget was set at just over two billion, and that, economists and hired consultants had calculated, would nevertheless be a profitable business for the municipality; yes, the water park would hardly make a profit in itself, but the hotel would – and overall strengthen Liseberg.
But that was before the pandemic, it was before sharp interest rate hikes and a weaker economy for households in general. This is also the reason why the politicians on the board during the meeting on Monday would receive a special review of the financial situation.
This is what the Oceana water park is supposed to look like inside the roof once it can be inaugurated. Photo: Liseberg
In the local debate the occasional voice has been raised because it is fundamentally wrong for the municipality to build and run the new large hotel and water park, but when the council said yes seven years ago, it was still done with the support of most private hotel owners. The primary attraction: To take part in the almost 600,000 bathers that the calculation pointed towards.
– This is exactly what the destination Gothenburg needs to get the tourism industry going again after the corona crisis. The water park will be able to receive half a million visitors a year and generate 185,000 extra guest nights for the city. It will give new life to an industry in crisis, said Liseberg’s then chairman of the board Christer Holmgren (M) when the contract with the construction company NCC was signed just over three years ago.
Gothenburg & Co’s CEO Peter Grönberg. Photo: Marie Ullnert
The planning of the hospitality industry in Gothenburg is led by the municipality-owned Göteborg & Co, where Peter Grönberg is CEO. When DN spoke to him on Monday, he could see the black smoke from the Oceana fire from his residence.
– What we see burning now is extremely tragic and we can only hope that no one is seriously injured, he says.
What does Oceana mean for Gothenburg, from a visitor point of view?
– It would be one of this year’s two really big news for the city, along with World of Volvo which opens in April, also very close by. It was great fun to inaugurate the hotel Grand Curiosa last year, but Oceana with the bathing experiences there is the whole driving force as an attraction, the thing that will bring almost 600,000 visitors a year and make Liseberg a year-round destination.
The fire means, says Peter Grönberg, a “huge interruption”.
– The hotel won’t be complete until the water park is open, it’s tragic for Gothenburg.
Peter Grönberg points Otherwise, Gothenburg as a destination rose from the pandemic years, with 5.6 million guest nights in 2023, a ten percent increase over 2019.
– But now that we have entered 2024 when the situation in the industry is already tough, with an uncertainty about how purchasing power is affected, Oceana was something we saw as an important addition to maintain visitor levels. We have several new hotels in town and new travel guides are needed.
The original plan was for the water park to be inaugurated in April, but the responsible construction company NCC needed more time, and now the plan was to start receiving visitors in mid-June.
The fire itself should not entail any direct costs for Lisebergsbolaget and the municipality. But lost revenue and possibly also fewer guests to the hotel will affect Liseberg’s calculations. But Peter Grönberg at Gothenburg & Co. today does not want to speculate on the need for further capital contributions from the owner, the municipal council.
– It will be something we will have to look at later, if necessary.
Fact.Oceana was supposed to open in June
The Oceana water park, which is to be Northern Europe’s largest of its kind, has a total area of 13,600 square meters, of which the outdoor part is 4,000 square meters.
1,750 guests should be able to visit the water world at the same time in the summer when the outdoor area is also open.
It is planned to have 14 water attractions, four of which are large. One of these is a so-called master blaster, called Rex, with which will have the highest master blaster drop in the world, at 13 meters. The entire track is 198 meters long.
Source: Liseberg
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