Author: Robbie Soussan

Continuum Attractions continue to deliver exceptional award-winning visitor experiences in a post-pandemic market.

Despite the challenges of the past couple of years in the tourism and leisure industry, one of the UK’s leading visitor attractions companies, Continuum Attractions, has continued to place its guests at the heart of what they do.

As a result, the York-based company is delighted to see that five of its eight attractions have been awarded the TripAdvisor Travellers’ Choice Award 2022 for; The Real Mary King’s Close, GreenWood Family Park, York’s Chocolate Story, Spinnaker Tower, and Oxford Castle & Prison.

These awards celebrate visitor attractions that are highly rated by travellers on the platform.

Julia Delaney, CEO of Continuum Attractions says: “When our teams work incredibly hard to create memorable and enjoyable experiences for our guests, it is so rewarding to hear back from those guests telling us and others how much they enjoyed it. We are delighted that our visitors have shared their five-star experiences on TripAdvisor, and that these reviews are recognised with these awards.”

“We have some exciting new projects planned for the next 12 months which will further expand the portfolio of experiences that Continuum Attractions offers, and we are looking forward to delighting even more guests in the future”.

Read more about our attractions here:

https://www.realmarykingsclose.com/

https://www.yorkschocolatestory.com/

https://www.spinnakertower.co.uk/

https://www.oxfordcastleandprison.co.uk/

https://www.greenwoodfamilypark.co.uk/

https://www.imacelebrityjunglechallenge.co.uk/

https://www.coronationstreettour.co.uk/

https://www.emmerdalevillagetour.co.uk/

As the world begins to reopen and life transitions back to normality, it’s natural that we’ve all been left wondering what ‘normal’ truly means for our future. For those of us in the tourism sector, normality, has continued to raise question after question about the future of our industry and what tourism really looks like in the ever- changing landscape we currently find ourselves in.

Having worked in the tourism industry for over 30 years, our CEO Juliana Delaney never anticipated that she’d have to shut the doors to her group of attractions for the best part of a year. But, more than that, when the doors closed in Spring 2020, she certainly didn’t anticipate the opportunities that this period might lead to. With a year of uncertainty behind us, innovation, flexibility and a willingness to embrace the unknown have been at the core of operations at Continuum Attractions. So, as we emerge from a period of extended lockdowns and closures, here’s what Juliana sees for the future of UK Tourism:

“Before Covid took hold of the UK, we were performing incredibly well and exciting new prospects were close on the horizon. The threat of having to close our doors to our guests was a devastating prospect, but we knew this period of closure wasn’t an opportunity to sulk and put our feet up. We started with the humble beginnings of managing Jorvik Viking Centre in 1981. Since then, we’ve built a growing portfolio of attractions across England, Scotland and Wales, welcoming millions of visitors a year. It was high time to hold a mirror up to our business and how it runs.”

“Naturally our customer-facing teams were placed on furlough, which has been a real lifeline for so many businesses like ours. But for those of us able to work, it was time to get lockdown fit. We overhauled our operations and booking program, investing in new software that would allow our teams to do more for our customers. We reviewed each visitor attraction in more detail than ever before, creating lean and close-knit teams to deliver on our changing customer needs. We also invested in physical improvements and expansions to our sites wherever possible, like the new sustainable accommodation and outdoor quest at our popular Greenwood site.”

“We also spent a lot of time working with industry partners and fellow operators to share best practice on how we navigate this completely unpredictable turn of events. It’s a shared opinion in the industry that tourism is often overlooked for its economic and emotional value. A global pandemic has finally shifted that aged perception. With that, and our improved joined up approach as an industry, I see a bright future in our comeback.”

“As the world continues to hold up its crystal ball, wondering what the future of their industry will look like post-pandemic, I think there are some changes that are here to stay for tourism. We’ll continue to create space at our attractions to allow for social distancing, even when it’s no longer mandatory. We’re also going to ask all our guests to book in advance to help us move them through our attractions, avoiding crowds or bottlenecks. We’ll also continue to offer experiences virtually as well as in person, like our popular underground video tour of Edinburgh’s forgotten Royal Mile – The Real Mary King’s Close.”

“I also think the revival of human contact will be high on our post-lockdown wish list. We’ve all had to adjust to a world lived online, from our shopping habits to our working environments and even how we catch up with friends and relatives. Our visitor attractions showcase real people and their stories in an enriching way that just can’t be experienced as authentically online. I can’t wait to see our tour guides light up a room of engaged visitors again.”

“With a lot of uncertainty around quite how carefree and open this summer will be, there’s also a new message needed for our industry: ‘Visit, but visit responsibly’. Britain does have beautiful landmarks and memorable places to holiday – I’ve been shouting about that for years – but we can’t overwhelm these places beyond recognition with a level of carelessness. If you’re planning to hike Snowdonia or head to your local park, pick up and dispose of your litter. It’s the least we can all do after more than a year of pulling together to try and safely open up our world again.”

So, with re-opening on the horizon, it’s clear that the landscape of tourism remains changed and further evolution is inevitable. Much like our attitude to the last 12 months, at Continuum Attractions we’re looking to this next phase with optimism and, more than anything, we’re excited to be welcoming our guests back into our attractions.

Our successful visitor business is created around the stories of some formidable women from the past, as we tell the tales of interesting and path-carving characters from the 17^th century onwards in a number of our attractions. Landowners in Edinburgh, chocolate entrepreneurs in York and political campaigners in Oxford, these women built their successful independent businesses and environments from scratch, and it’s interesting to reflect on International Women’s Day on what we have learnt from the telling of these stories.

Whether it’s 17^th century businesswoman and landowner Mary King, namesake of The Real Mary King’s Close in Edinburgh, or 18^th century Mary Tuke, recognised as the ‘mother of York’s chocolate industry’, whose tale is told at York’s Chocolate Story, we learn that these women worked to be the very best that they could be. There’s little discussion or documentation of them competing to be better than their male counterparts, despite living and functioning in what were male-dominant societies. They went about their daily lives and built their fruitful careers by concentrating on their own best choices and decisions.

Move to current day, and a similar comparison can be made at Continuum Attractions, a company led by women in senior posts, all striving to do their very own best – a successful group of women in an industry which allows room for gender neutrality, thus attracting purposeful women to thrive. Collectively, the females leading Continuum credit the tourism and hospitality industry for allowing them, and women in general, a nurtured and supported space in which to do well. It’s an industry where gender has largely gone under the radar and where competition between male and female is less of a focus. Perhaps that is the very lesson to learn, that if we all just focused on being the best we can be, like those women before us, there might be less of a conversation around the need for gender equality.

In 1995 Forrest Gump won 6 Oscars, Microsoft launched Windows 95 and Alan Shearer won the Premier League’s ‘Golden Boot’ award. But over at Continuum Attractions (or Heritage Projects as we were known then) far more important things were afoot, as a determined, creative cat-lover called Monique stepped through our doors for her first day in her new admin assistant role.

Fast forward to 2019 and Monique, now Marketing Services Manager, is celebrating her 24th anniversary with the company. As part of the dynamic central marketing team, Monique works closely with the marketeers across our UK-wide attractions, liaising with designers, co-ordinating print needs (what she doesn’t know about leaflets isn’t worth knowing!) and using her extensive skills and experience to lead diverse projects.

“Monique is a vital member of the marketing team”

Head of Marketing Jules Ozbek explains.

“It’s a real pleasure to work with her. Super reliable and great in a crisis, we don’t know what we’d do without her 24 years of knowledge and experience – or her outstanding organisational skills”

Having found a few minutes to talk to me whilst co-ordinating a major office refurbishment at our York support office, Monique tells us why she enjoys working for Continuum:

“No one day is the same.  You’re like Dr Who with your very own TARDIS – one minute you could be dealing with the team down on the South Coast before flying up to 17^th century Edinburgh!”

But what’s the best thing about her job?

“I get to work with an amazing group of people day in day out – from all corners of the country – now what’s not to like about that?”

New starters to the company often see Monique several times before meeting her, due to her model-like status, regularly stepping up and jumping in front of the camera when the photo-shoot she’s running needs an extra body.

“I’ve been an extra in so many TV ads and photoshoots – from a Medieval Maid for The Canterbury Tales to the face of our latest campaign for Spinnaker Tower – my inner diva comes to the fore!”

Over 24 years, Monique has seen many changes to her role, the company and the team, including being involved in the launch of lots of new attractions:

“There’s been some really exciting projects over the last 24 years – every project is exciting but particular highlights include opening The Real Mary King’s Close in Edinburgh. Being one of the very first visitors to walk down on to the Close… I can still feel my reaction of amazement – real people lived, breathed and walked on these streets – how amazing to be part of that!

“More recently, Coronation Street The Tour – everyone loves a bit of ‘Corrie’ and I got the opportunity to be part of the team that gave visitors the chance to walk down the famous cobbles on the original Granada Studios set before it was sadly demolished.  Who wouldn’t want to get behind the scenes and have a sneaky try on of Deidre Barlow’s actual glasses – but shush that’s a secret!”

Monique is currently beavering away on our annual Attraction of the Year award ceremony event – pulling together the last minute table plans, name cards and menus. Every year, the event showcases one of our attractions from the portfolio, and this year it’s York’s Chocolate Story complete with beautiful Black Magic themed invitations.

“Some other projects I’m working on at the moment include working with the wonderful team in Wales at our newest attraction GreenWood Family Park on producing some amazing, fun and creative collateral – everything from signage and site maps to leaflets and labelling”

Monique also ran (and starred in) the new WOW campaign we have at Emirates Spinnaker Tower, pushing that out to our audiences in online ads, print and signage.  In her own words:

“It’s a good job I’m good at spinning plates…and eating scones!”

We hope she continues spinning plates and ‘WOW’ing our teams for a long time to come!

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Here at Continuum Attractions, we pride ourselves on putting our team first.

With an impressive benefit package, competitive pay, a focus on team wellbeing- and as part of one of the most exciting and challenging industries – we’re delighted  that so many of our team choose to stay with us for many years. But when our team are ready for pastures new, we wish them well (and sometimes shed a few tears!) and are delighted to welcome fresh new faces into the Continuum family.

If you want to be part of our culture, having fun and making money (in that order!) check out our latest job vacancies.

Who knows, in 24 years’ time, maybe YOU could be the star of your own anniversary blog post… or whichever futuristic format we prefer in 2043!

Meet Erica Lee.

Erica has worked at Continuum Attractions as Group Retail Manager for the last five years, heading up the retail experiences across all our attractions.  With sites as far apart as Edinburgh and Portsmouth, the job involves a fair amount of travelling, though Erica still gets time to pursue varied interests including gardening, pottery and baking – her Christmas gingerbread houses are legendary!

Read on for top tips and insights into the world of retail, plus find out what Erica thinks is the most important factor in creating an outstanding retail experience…

So Erica, what does your job of Group Retail Manager entail?

“Part of working across the group is standardising policies and processes, and providing a level of consistency across our operation. I spend a lot of my time looking for efficiencies, cost savings, and opportunities to share best practice and great ideas across the attractions. But hand in hand with this consistency, is the importance of making sure that each of our nine shops has a distinct identity and is an integral part of each brand’s experience.

How do you go about making that happen?

“Well, it all starts with product selection. Before a new product comes through our doors, we ask two questions; Who is it for? Is it on brand? This can mean tough decisions about our product mix. It means we say no a lot. It might be popular, even a potential best seller, but if it’s not right for our brand, it’s not right for us. This pushes us to innovate, to be creative, and to find great products that delight, inspire, and have that all important ‘ooh factor’.

What are your favourite products across the attractions?

• Unicorn soft toys at The Real Mary King’s Close. Unicorns are Scotland’s national creature and its great when we can find a way to make retail trends work with our brand stories.
• Our salted caramel chocolate bar at York’s Chocolate Story – its made in house and is soooo yummy!
• Mead at The Canterbury Tales because we can use it to interact with our guests by sampling it. It’s also made by a great local Kentish supplier.

But finding the right product is just the start of it?

“Exactly. At Continuum, storytelling is at the heart of everything we do, and the retail experience is an integral part of this. When our guests emerge from one of our tours, views or experiences, the transition to the shop should be seamless. The retail space, often the final part of our guest’s journey with us, is so much more than just a shop. It’s the final room, the lasting memory, a space to experience just a little bit more, and to transition back to the real world. It’s an opportunity for our guests to take away a piece of the story they’ve just lived, something to remind them of their time with us, something with a story of its own that our guests can treasure and share.

How do you make a retail space into part of the experience?

“The theming, layout and presentation of the shop have a crucial part to play, in both showcasing our products in the best possible way, and in giving our guests a place to experience and interact with our brand. We love shops that our guests want to stay in, explore, take photos of, and point of sale that speaks to them with the right tone of voice, and tells them that brilliant fact about why they should buy the product.

So what’s the most important thing – is it the product selection or the retail space itself?

“Actually, neither. The final and most important part of the puzzle is the team. At The Canterbury Tales, our guests exit the final show room, and are greeted in the market place by our costumed shop team with samples of traditional mead to refresh those that are weary from their pilgrimage! What better way to ease them from Chaucer’s Medieval England into a retail space where they want to stay, sample our product range, and engage with our brilliant team who are only too happy to share their knowledge. Whether it leads to a sale or not, our guests continue their learning here, and that’s down to a team that live and breathe their brand.”

Finally, what are your top tips for attractions wanting to enhance their retail offering?

•  Engage your team – they should be your product experts
• Understand your brand – involve your marketing teams in all relevant aspects
• Look through your guest’s eyes – walk the full attraction journey regularly to check the transition into the shop space, not just the shop itself.

The story doesn’t end here…

Look out for a future post where we talk to Chris Peel, Group Food and Beverage Manager, about food and drink across the attractions. Follow us on Twitter @Continuum_Group to stay up to date with our latest news and blog posts.

If you’re looking for attraction expertise for a future project, why not find out more about collaborating with us or find out how we worked with The Void to  bring their hyper-reality experience to life in the UK… in just 8 weeks!

At Continuum Attractions, we’ve really enjoyed operating Star Wars™: Secrets of the Empire at The VOID in London, which comes to and end on June 19^th. We talked to Kev Smith, Attractions Director for Continuum Attractions to find out more about the start of the journey…

So Kev, how did it all start?

We were first approached by The VOID in August 2017. A relatively new virtual reality start up business in the USA, they were already developing two projects at Disney Springs and Disney Anaheim in North America  but wanted to deliver a ‘pop up’ experience based around Star Wars™, in conjunction with Disney and ILMxKLAB. The VOID wanted to open an experience in London before Christmas, to coincide with the release of the new Star Wars™ film, The Last Jedi.  However, they needed an experienced and successful operator in the UK to make this a reality.

What happened after the initial call?

The VOID took the time to come over to the UK and look at potential venues, as well as visiting our offices in York to gain a greater understanding of how our business was structured. We were also able to show them one of our experiences, York’s Chocolate Story and demonstrate the quality and care that we put in to our operations.

Sounds promising…

It was… but then September came and went. These things take a lot of time and The VOID were clearly looking at all potential opportunities to ensure they had the right partner on board to meet their requirements and shoulder a high degree of responsibility.

Two further weeks passed and we were getting towards the end of October when I received a call stating that The VOIDhad been very impressed with our business and our operations and would like to work with us to get the experience based at Westfield shopping centre in London opened by mid-December.

That’s fantastic!

We were delighted, but the date came as a slight surprise as we had assumed that there had been delays and that an opening would have been pushed back, but no, mid-December was the deadline.

So it was a quick turnaround?

Very… we had just 8 weeks left until opening! We booked some flights and went for a visit to The VOID’s head office in Lindon, Salt Lake City –  a necessity to gain a full insight in to the development of the experience, its technology, its functionality and their people.

Was that quite time consuming when you were working to such a tight deadline?

It takes time to get to Utah, of course, but that first week visiting the offices proved pivotal in the development of the project as we were able to come back to the UK with as full an understanding of the experience as possible. Approximately six weeks remained for us to get the facility open!

What else needed doing in those 6 weeks?

Well, luckily all of the design work for the structure had been done but everything else associated with opening an attraction had to be delivered. Setting up the business and banking arrangements, recruitment and training, marketing and PR, sales and bookings system development, health and safety planning, retail and photo development, technical systems development, administrative systems development and more! It’s fair to say that a lot had to be done in a very small space of time.

How did you get it all done in time?

Thanks to the people involved. We worked closely with The VOID’s operating team to refine their plans to fit with the timescale. Our attraction management, admissions and guest services team started in early December with an intensive training schedule leading up to the opening on 16^th December. Only three of the team had seen the experience, in Salt Lake City, until 5 days prior to the opening. It’s fair to say that they were all blown away by the sheer ‘awesomeness’ that the experience delivers… and we were blown away by their determination and hard work!

The crucial question: did you open on time?

Of course! Opening day came on the 16^th December with the London operation being the first to open in the world – beating Disney Springs by seven hours.

Wow!

It felt like the eyes of the world was on the operation The VOID, Disney, ILMXLAB as well as a host of technical publications and the attractions industry – all interested in how the experience performed. However, we were confident in what our team could deliver.

So it went well?

Day one was a roaring success … in fact all the days following have been too!

Were there any learnings from the experience?

It’s fair to say that we have all learned a lot very quickly (including The VOID). Being the first truly ‘Hyper Reality’ experience in the world and setting the bench mark for others to follow our collaborative working methods have been critical to the success of the project.

Do you have any advice to someone wanting to open an attraction within 8 weeks?

Although we did manage to successfully meet this timeline and we look forward to continuing our relationship with The VOID, attraction developers reading this article take heed – don’t expect that your experience can open in 6-8 weeks! Ideally, an operator such as ourselves needs to be involved 12-24 months in advance of the opening to be able to contribute to and influence a whole host of aspects including design and layout, and to programme in marketing activities to build the market way in advance of any potential opening.

Great advice, thank you Kev! Is there anything else you’d like to add?

 I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all of the partners associated with the project: The VOID, Disney, ILMxLAB, Westfield and finally to Charlie Gooch at Blooloop for linking us to The VOID in the first instant.

As a leading attraction and leisure brand, Continuum Attractions have over 30 years of experience operating a wide range of operating story-led experiences across the UK and around the world. From eco-friendly family parks like GreenWood in North Wales, to cutting-edge technology like Star Wars™: Secrets of The Empire at The VOID, we use our expertise to work alongside our partners, or on our own, to create outstanding experiences.

Want to find out more about how we work? Check out our Collaborate section.