 dropped on Tuesday, after it saw a slowdown in visitors in the wake of recent terrorist attacks across the UK.){kind=link}
Shares in theme park owner Merlin Entertainments (LON:MERL) dropped on Tuesday, after it saw a slowdown in visitors in the wake of recent terrorist attacks across the UK.
Despite the company making “good progress with” its 2020 New Business Development milestones and seeing “group trading year to date has been broadly in line with expectations”, its UK performance suffered in the months following the attack on Westminster in March and that in Manchester in May.
Chief executive Nick Varney said the impact of recent terrorist attacks on the group’s London attractions is “unclear at this stage”, but “what is clear however is that London has bounced back before, and will do again.”
“I have every confidence in the longer term resilience and growth trajectory of the market. London is very much open for business, welcoming visitors from the UK and from around the world to this exciting and vibrant city,” he concluded.
Internationally the group performed better, making significant progress with goals and new openings. Merlin said it remained “confident in the delivery of our 2020 milestones”, seeing Legoland Japan open on 1 April, ahead of schedule and on budget, alongside the Legoland Discovery Centres in Melbourne and Philadelphia, and Madame Tussauds in Nashville.
“Merlin has a diverse portfolio of global brands with over 70 percent of 2016 profits from outside the UK and this proportion will only grow over time as we continue to invest internationally. I remain confident in the company’s underlying growth prospects,” Varney said.
The results come just one year after Merlin Entertainments was fined £5 million after sixteen people were injured in a crash on its Smiler rollercoaster at Alton Towers, including two teenage girls who needed leg amputations.
Shares in Merlin (LON:MERL) are currently trading down 2.64 percent at 489.70 (0950GMT).