Paramount Parks management takeover of Gilroy
’s picturesque but struggling Bonfante Gardens theme park has
Kirsten Carr, the city’s tourism chapion, excited.
Paramount Parks management takeover of Gilroy’s picturesque but struggling Bonfante Gardens theme park has Kirsten Carr, the city’s tourism chapion, excited.
The executive director of the city’s Visitors Bureau said it’s certainly good news that the gardens – a major tourist attraction for the South Valley area – will reopen.
“We’re thrilled the park will open this year and open for a full season, because it’s a great asset to the tourism community,” she said. “And Paramount is well-respected in the tourism industry.”
Meanwhile, Paramount executives have been making the rounds since the announcement, meeting with park employees and city leaders to gather information and discuss their intentions. City officials said they were impressed with the company’s level of professionalism.
“I don’t think anyone had under 15 years experience with the company,” said Mayor Tom Springer. “These area people who have ‘been there, done that’ in a wide variety of things.”
Bonfante Gardens’ leaders announced earlier this month that Paramount Parks, one of the nation’s leading theme park operators and the company that owns Great America in Santa Clara, had entered a five-year deal to manage the park located on Hecker Pass at the city’s western boundary.
Besides helping the horticultural wonderland, created by former Nob Hill Foods owner Michael Bonfante who poured more than $60 million into the park, run more efficiently and providing valuable strategic direction to decision-makers on the park’s nonprofit board of directors, marketing is a major cornerstone of the agreement.
Bonfante’s local board of directors, the park’s managers, hope Paramount’s greater expertise and clout will help expand knowledge about the park from the local level to a regional area and boost attendance numbers that have fallen short of expectations since the park opened on June 15, 2001.
Although they haven’t met with Paramount yet and don’t expect to until the company officials have gained a stronger footing here, Carr said bureau officials do plan to explore a marketing partnership.
“We figured we’d give them a chance to get unpacked before we start pounding on their doors and say ‘Come do this with us,’ ” she said.
In the past, Bonfante Gardens has been one of several cooperative marketing partners – along with wineries and hotels – that group together through the bureau to fund expensive advertising buys in regional travel media outlets such as American Automobile Association publications or Central Coast Guide.
But Great America already has a substantial marketing effort, existing clientele and customer lists that Bonfante can “piggyback” off, Bonfante officials said when they announced the deal, and cooperative marketing between the two parks is a strong possibility.
Carr said that association alone could enhance the area’s reputation as an overnight destination, because families may decide to stay here in order to visit both parks.
“It gives them another reason to spend the night, which makes our hotels happy,” she said. “And when (they’re) here to visit the parks, they could visit our wineries and shopping (destinations) as well.”
The arrangement could also provide greater appeal to families with both teenagers and younger children, she said.
Paramount officials also stressed that they plan to retain the park’s existing atmosphere, Springer said.
“They really do want to run it exactly as it is, a family-oriented-type park,” he said. “It’s not going to be a neon-lights, noisy thing.”
