Kinzel: "People have to eat"

The way I see it bad experiences, like price gouging on food, leads to bad public relations. If I had a bad experience at Cedar Point I am going to tell people about it. Maybe if you look into the factors that brought down Geauga Lake you might find that despite the fact that the park had a nice collection of roller coasters many people that went to Geauga Lake when it was WOA had bad experiences with the other aspects of the park. Maybe in the end it was a bad public perception of the park that brought it down instead of being overbuilt. It seems as if Cedar Point may be going down the same path.

It's all about quality. My personal favorite park is Bush Gardens Europe and that has got to be one of the most expensive parks in the country. I easly spend $300 per visit with tickets, food, and souviners. I always feel like I get my moneys worth there. It's also hard to find alot of negative feed back about that park. The point is I am willing, and I think others are too, to spend $7.00 on a hotdog and fries as long as the hot dogs are hot and the fries are crisp. You can look at from the other spectrum, as well. The park that is no more than 45 minutes from my house will never get my business. I could probably get tickets for both me and my husband together for around $40.00. Everthing in that park is horrible, from the food to the paint on the rides, and I would have no problem finding others who would say the same. I can only go by hear say but it seams like Cedar Point is some where in the middle of the quality spectrum. I do like the way they offer the free water.

^Let me guess, Six Flags America.

^ That's it.

Really interesting thread. A couple of comments:

I have to say that I don't really find the quote in question very shocking or disappointing. Cedar Fair, like Disney, like Universal, like every other park operator out there, is a business. Of course they are going to want money from you... and of course they are going to want profits. Look at Six Flags. Mark Shapairo seems to be getting tons of praise, and yet he is extremely clear in the conference calls, etc, that he wants to squeeze every penny from his guests he can. He's said much worse things than what Kinzel said in the conference call, and not just once, but countless times.

I don't really think that Cedar Fair's food situation is that much worse than other parks. Food is expensive at whatever park you go to. I just got back from Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom and I'd say prices were worse than Cedar Point. Am I saying that Cedar Point's food quality is perfect/good? No... it could definitely be improved. But I still think it's comparable to other parks.

And I do agree that I think the CF parks could use a bit of a fresh perspective, and it would have been nice if Dick Kinzel had of stepped down when he initially inteded to. I completely agree with that. But I still think CF is a great company and and we are better off than many other parks out there.

It is not the fact that food prices were raised that gets to me. Even if food prices were kept low, but admission was raised...or even parking, people would still be complaining. What ticks me off is the way DK (not donky kong, but Dick Kinzel ;) ) had no empathy about it what so ever.

It seems that many here are either missing the point entirely, have not visited many parks, or have extremely low standards for quality anything. Furthermore, it's not this one quote that makes Kinzel a horrible leader...if you actually do research, read around, you'd find that he is the epitamy of bad decision making, not to mention the crappy way the park treats its employees. We can't just focus on Kinzels early years. CF in general defines micromanagement, and mixed with a leader who has about as much empathy as a brick wall, lacks so much that make other parks much more successful in terms of a total guest and/or employee experience.

I think a lot of people have never worked at CPor for CF a day in their life, and are looking at this from the typical visitor perspective(not really a bad thing)...there are other issues with the park, some of which can only be seen as an employee.

Furthermore, many of you are forgetting the bang for your buck sentiment. You cannot only measure CP in terms of: "admission prices are the cheapest." That should have bearing on the quality of any park in ALL areas of its operations. The park fails miserably in many regards, many of which some of you have touched on.

This is an amusement park industry, not Microsoft. There is no excuse for the way Kinzel is running things, and the general population needs to see the park as a whole, not: "it doesn't bother me to pay five dollars for a pop, I mean, look how many rollercoasters they have!!!". That is the same line of thinking that has gotten this park into trouble...and very soon, one of these days, it's going to bite them in the ass.

mk522 said:
I think a lot of people have never worked at CPor for CF a day in their life, and are looking at this from the typical visitor perspective(not really a bad thing)...there are other issues with the park, some of which can only be seen as an employee.

That makes absolutely no difference. The consumer doesn't care about the inner workings, only what they get for their money. I understand that the way employees are treated makes a difference in the end product, but the "You don't know how things are" line is completely irrelevant.

Perhaps I worded that differently than I thought, but the point I was trying to make is that the business principles that Kinzel is using don't seem to have the park's best interest at heart.

Furthermore, I had implied that there are different perspectives in which different issues in the park arise, which is relevant. However, not to argue, but an informed consumer does care about the inner workings.

The average park guest might have seen the problems in the past. The average park employee might have guessed what caused those problems to arise. The average park full-time employee likely knew the reasons why the problems occurred.

Kinzel's recent public remarks gave validity to what everyone was thinking and finally pointed to the source.

And I suppose the ultimate blame can go to the Board of Directors for allowing Kinzel to stay on since his premature retirement date.

I paid $10 to see a movie the other day. While I was there, I got hungry. I went to the concession stand and paid $6.75 for a box of Tostitos nachos with a cup of cheese sauce.

The reason I did this...I had to eat.

When you run a business, you charge higher prices where you can and work on the other items such as merchandise. What he said makes perfect sense to me.

As far as the quality of food and service at those stands, improvement is definitely needed. After having been a general manager of a fast food restaurant, I understand that quality service takes at least 2 months for an indivdual to get decent at. I can't even imagine having a crew that seems to be primarily of foreign teenagers.

As far as other parks in this chain not having control of food and pricing, KI charges $3.50 for a bottle of the Coke products they sell.

So respecting your customer and understanding their limits and perceptions has nothing to do with business? That's precisely the problem in this case.

Maybe when he stated how they have been easily able to pass the increases of food on to the consumer, he was talking about the increase of the the costs they pay for the food in the first place.

Has anyone read the answer to the following question Kinzel was given where he talks about not wanting to interfere with the comfort, being welcome and the experience of the guests?

Doesn't sound like he's forgetting about who pays his salary based on that line.

Zoug, you must have some extra money. If you were on a tight budget, you would have a completely different outlook. Yes they have to raise prices somewhere. It is a business, and to stay a float they need to make money. But to be as inconsiderate as Dick was...that is just bad for business no matter which way you look at it.

You get a sense that the only way Kinzel knows how to improve upon his product (and thus...make money) is to build roller coasters. And, to his credit, he has done some exciting things with roller coasters.

But, I have a little secret: You can improve your product and make more money lots of ways. The days of, "if you build it...they will come" are over.

I have a crazy idea. Stay with me here because it is really going to be "out there". Invest in your....

"HUMAN RESOURCES"

Boy Chief it sounds like you'd like to challenge Kinzel to a street fight. He's really got you fired up!

^ I don't think it would be terribly difficult to beat him either. He's only about 4 feet tall.

Now if the Indians had as much passion as the Chief they'd be in the race this year.

he IS a business-man, and everyone is hurting as far as the economy so sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.

"Business-men" should also know a thing or two about Business Ethics...