On February 12th one of America’s historic amusement parks, Busch Gardens, left 16 passenger’s stuck hundreds of feet up in the air at the top of the “Cheetah” ride for hours in it’s Tampa location. Busch gardens is one of Florida’s most popular amusement parks since 1959. As the years went by Busch Gardens has become one of Tampa’s main attraction for tourist’s, as well as it’s other four parks located in California, Texas, and Virginia. The question is how bad will this incident affect Busch Gardens and the rest of the chains location’s by bringing down the parks value and image to tourist’s.
Busch Gardens is owned and operated by Sea World Entertainment, which is another main attraction to tourist’s in Orlando, Florida. With how bad economy is today, people make sure to be more safe, secure their money more and take less risks. I know i myself am very cautious with how i spend my money, especially with today’s economy. I think looking at the bigger picture with such an incident, putting 16 peoples lives at risk now tourist’s will start to think twice about visiting theme parks like, Busch Gardens and any of it’s affiliates. As a result, although the 16 passengers were rescued safely unharmed this incident will only bring down not only Busch Gardens revenue but all of it’s affiliate like Sea World, and Adventure Island as well.
“Cheetah hunt” is triple launch roller coaster that was added to the park in 2011, which makes this ride one of the parks newer rides being about 4 years old. Which only makes me wonder if the rides that were newly added not even a year ago like “Sheikra” could be trusted or will it leave people stuck in the air or even worst. In conclusion, technical difficulties at amusement parks like the one that occurred on February 12th at Busch Gardens is just the tip of the ice burg that not only might have caused 16 people’s lives, but will in turn affect the whole state of Florida’s economy negatively by turning away many tourist’s from spending their money at Busch Gardens or any of the parks affiliate parks.