Wonderla to reopen Kochi park next week, all parks open now

A month after it started reopening its amusement parks, Wonderla Holidays announced that it would reopen its flagship Wonderla Kochi park on Sept 1.

This is the third and the last of the main locations for the company that is getting reopened after the second wave of COVID-19.

South India’s biggest amusement park chain had reopened its Hyderabad park on Aug 5, Bangalore park on Aug 12, and will reopen the Kochi park next week.

The reopenings have been greeted by much investor enthusiasm. The company’s stock jumped 25% after it reopened the Hyderabad and Bangalore parks earlier this month.

At one time, Wonderla Holidays used to trade above Rs 400 per share, but fell to just Rs 111 during the lockdown of 2020.

Over the next one year, it climbed to over Rs 200 per share, but was again pushed down to Rs 178 during the second lockdown.

It was trading at Rs 214 in early July, when it announced its plans to reopen the parks in August. This led the stock to hit a level of around Rs 255, but the shares have slipped to the Rs 230 range since then.

As of 11:00AM, the shares are up around 1.5% at Rs 232 each.

COVID WARRIORS

As in case of the other two parks, the company said it will offer free admission to COVID warriors after reopening.

As part of the reopening initiative, Wonderla Kochi is inviting ‘Covid Angels’ from September 1–4.

“The gesture is to thank the frontline workers for their tireless service during these unprecedented times. Wonderla Kochi is honouring 375 Covid Angels for these 4 days from the state along with 3 of their family members or friends to a fun-filled day with free entry tickets to the park.

“To register, the applicant can either self-nominate or nominate a person whom they know who have been tirelessly working during the pandemic. Further, a picture or video must be uploaded on Instagram, highlighting the service/work and Wonderla official page @wonderla_in has to be tagged,” it added.

The registration for ‘Covid Angels’ will be open from 24th to 28th August.

Wonderla Kochi will be open only on Wednesday to Saturday from 11 am onwards in the short-term until the government relaxes its guidelines.

As part of the reopening initiative, Wonderla Kochi offers a limited period rate of Rs 799 inclusive of GST for an all-access entry.