Straco Corporation

Earnings are starting to come back on the back of healthy increase in domestic tourism. This is led by China's policy to promote their own tourism. Straco did not increase their ticket pricing yet. Shanghai Aquarium and Singapore Flyer might be going through AEI soon. Look out for Q3 for upswing in earnings soon? High operational leverage effects with cash-cow assets, dependent on tourism numbers.

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Walt Disney Co.’s ambitious $5.5 billion Shanghai theme park is close to breaking even after its first full year of operations -- a mark none of its resorts have been able to hit in the last 30 years, said Chief Executive Officer Bob Iger.

“That’s an extraordinary achievement. I’m not sure we’ve ever done that,” said Iger in an interview with Bloomberg Television’s Tom Mackenzie on Friday as the Shanghai Disney Resort celebrated its first anniversary. “After the first year, I’m pleased to say that prospects are really strong for continued success and continued growth.”

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/...aking-even

星雅季度结果Q3 FY17 result out tomorrow after trading hour

3Q is Straco's peak season and FY17's peak season seems to have hit a roadblock with UWX getting further hit from Authorities restriction. Nonetheless, the company continues to have a healthy balance sheet, a great FCF generative power and continue to pay down its Singapore Flyer debt.

3Q17 PR: http://infopub.sgx.com/FileOpen/StracoMe...eID=478481
3Q17 results http://infopub.sgx.com/FileOpen/Straco3Q...eID=478480

On increasing price (pricing power) of the attractions, the critical question to ask is, do you think the current price is NOT already expensive?

Do you want to visit such places at such price? Rmb 160 (S$35?) for aquarium?
Spore flyer, do u have intention to visit at current price?
My answer to those are actually maybe not! I don’t think my tourist friends will also.

Probably younger gens will rather go disney and uss than these? So have to rely on domestic and people from rural area?
Sustainable? Maybe yes for those first timers.

(31-12-2017, 11:42 PM)chialc88 Wrote:  
ksir raised a lot of questions on whether Straco business is sustainable.

I don't think anyone can be very sure at this point in time.

Happy New Year!

I guess one way to check the sustainability of its business is to look at the reviews of their assets on TripAdvisor.

The reviews for Singapore Flyers are largely positive despite the high price of the tickets. Seems like the tourists valued the experience very much (4.5 stars out of 14785 reviews). The number of reviews is also a gauge of visitors' volume and interest level. It should be able to generate the expected return over mid to long term.

Shanghai Ocean Aquarium (4 stars over 852 reviews) looks like its heading for decline. It used to be the largest aquarium in Asia (as advertised) but now it's eclipsed by S.E.A Aquarium that it may no longer be a must-visit destination for Shanghai visitors. Not sure how much of the revenue is derived from school children visits or companies' group tours though, but I won't bet on typical tourists spending money on it. One would goto Disneyland than to visit SOA in Shanghai, and there are many more better places to visit than SOA.

Underwater World Xiamen can basically be written off as a key revenue generator (3.5 stars with 46 reviews). In short, many people didn't like it, and bad reviews are not going to help attracting potential visitors.

Lixing Cable Car is dependant on how much of a tourist magnet Huaqing Palace is (which is not under their management) - 4 stars out of 623 reviews. Some people find it a tourist trap but many like it as well. So there might be some potential there.

Based on the impression from tourist reviews, I would expect the visitorships of SOA and UWX to decline and of the other two attractions to be stable (perhaps with some upside). Anyone knows about the revenue and profit for each of these attractions? That will give a better intuition on how good the business is.

(01-01-2018, 12:54 AM)Hippocrates Wrote:

(31-12-2017, 11:42 PM)chialc88 Wrote:  
ksir raised a lot of questions on whether Straco business is sustainable.

I don't think anyone can be very sure at this point in time.

Happy New Year!

I guess one way to check the sustainability of its business is to look at the reviews of their assets on TripAdvisor.

The reviews for Singapore Flyers are largely positive despite the high price of the tickets. Seems like the tourists valued the experience very much (4.5 stars out of 14785 reviews). The number of reviews is also a gauge of visitors' volume and interest level. It should be able to generate the expected return over mid to long term.

Shanghai Ocean Aquarium (4 stars over 852 reviews) looks like its heading for decline. It used to be the largest aquarium in Asia (as advertised) but now it's eclipsed by S.E.A Aquarium that it may no longer be a must-visit destination for Shanghai visitors. Not sure how much of the revenue is derived from school children visits or companies' group tours though, but I won't bet on typical tourists spending money on it. One would goto Disneyland than to visit SOA in Shanghai, and there are many more better places to visit than SOA.

Underwater World Xiamen can basically be written off as a key revenue generator (3.5 stars with 46 reviews). In short, many people didn't like it, and bad reviews are not going to help attracting potential visitors.

Lixing Cable Car is dependant on how much of a tourist magnet Huaqing Palace is (which is not under their management) - 4 stars out of 623 reviews. Some people find it a tourist trap but many like it as well. So there might be some potential there.

Based on the impression from tourist reviews, I would expect the visitorships of SOA and UWX to decline and of the other two attractions to be stable (perhaps with some upside). Anyone knows about the revenue and profit for each of these attractions? That will give a better intuition on how good the business is.

have you been there before?

(01-01-2018, 12:54 AM)Hippocrates Wrote: Happy New Year!

I guess one way to check the sustainability of its business is to look at the reviews of their assets on TripAdvisor.

The reviews for Singapore Flyers are largely positive despite the high price of the tickets. Seems like the tourists valued the experience very much (4.5 stars out of 14785 reviews). The number of reviews is also a gauge of visitors' volume and interest level. It should be able to generate the expected return over mid to long term.

Shanghai Ocean Aquarium (4 stars over 852 reviews) looks like its heading for decline. It used to be the largest aquarium in Asia (as advertised) but now it's eclipsed by S.E.A Aquarium that it may no longer be a must-visit destination for Shanghai visitors. Not sure how much of the revenue is derived from school children visits or companies' group tours though, but I won't bet on typical tourists spending money on it. One would goto Disneyland than to visit SOA in Shanghai, and there are many more better places to visit than SOA.

Underwater World Xiamen can basically be written off as a key revenue generator (3.5 stars with 46 reviews). In short, many people didn't like it, and bad reviews are not going to help attracting potential visitors.

Lixing Cable Car is dependant on how much of a tourist magnet Huaqing Palace is (which is not under their management) - 4 stars out of 623 reviews. Some people find it a tourist trap but many like it as well. So there might be some potential there.

Based on the impression from tourist reviews, I would expect the visitorships of SOA and UWX to decline and of the other two attractions to be stable (perhaps with some upside). Anyone knows about the revenue and profit for each of these attractions? That will give a better intuition on how good the business is.

That is a rather unconventional way of looking at a business.

On the contrary, I think many tourists especially local tourists visiting Shanghai and Xiamen will likely visit the two attractions.

(01-01-2018, 11:13 AM)opmi Wrote:

(01-01-2018, 12:54 AM)Hippocrates Wrote:

(31-12-2017, 11:42 PM)chialc88 Wrote:  
ksir raised a lot of questions on whether Straco business is sustainable.

I don't think anyone can be very sure at this point in time.

Happy New Year!

I guess one way to check the sustainability of its business is to look at the reviews of their assets on TripAdvisor.

The reviews for Singapore Flyers are largely positive despite the high price of the tickets. Seems like the tourists valued the experience very much (4.5 stars out of 14785 reviews). The number of reviews is also a gauge of visitors' volume and interest level. It should be able to generate the expected return over mid to long term.

Shanghai Ocean Aquarium (4 stars over 852 reviews) looks like its heading for decline. It used to be the largest aquarium in Asia (as advertised) but now it's eclipsed by S.E.A Aquarium that it may no longer be a must-visit destination for Shanghai visitors. Not sure how much of the revenue is derived from school children visits or companies' group tours though, but I won't bet on typical tourists spending money on it. One would goto Disneyland than to visit SOA in Shanghai, and there are many more better places to visit than SOA.

Underwater World Xiamen can basically be written off as a key revenue generator (3.5 stars with 46 reviews). In short, many people didn't like it, and bad reviews are not going to help attracting potential visitors.

Lixing Cable Car is dependant on how much of a tourist magnet Huaqing Palace is (which is not under their management) - 4 stars out of 623 reviews. Some people find it a tourist trap but many like it as well. So there might be some potential there.

Based on the impression from tourist reviews, I would expect the visitorships of SOA and UWX to decline and of the other two attractions to be stable (perhaps with some upside). Anyone knows about the revenue and profit for each of these attractions? That will give a better intuition on how good the business is.

have you been there before?

Nope, but that won’t change anything. The mean of hundreds/thousands of opinions is closer to the ground truth than one subjective measure in terms of probability. Sampling is the only caveat here, but still it’s giving a good estimation among tourists with internet access.

(01-01-2018, 06:37 PM)Pedragon Wrote:

(01-01-2018, 12:54 AM)Hippocrates Wrote: Happy New Year!

I guess one way to check the sustainability of its business is to look at the reviews of their assets on TripAdvisor.

The reviews for Singapore Flyers are largely positive despite the high price of the tickets. Seems like the tourists valued the experience very much (4.5 stars out of 14785 reviews). The number of reviews is also a gauge of visitors' volume and interest level. It should be able to generate the expected return over mid to long term.

Shanghai Ocean Aquarium (4 stars over 852 reviews) looks like its heading for decline. It used to be the largest aquarium in Asia (as advertised) but now it's eclipsed by S.E.A Aquarium that it may no longer be a must-visit destination for Shanghai visitors. Not sure how much of the revenue is derived from school children visits or companies' group tours though, but I won't bet on typical tourists spending money on it. One would goto Disneyland than to visit SOA in Shanghai, and there are many more better places to visit than SOA.

Underwater World Xiamen can basically be written off as a key revenue generator (3.5 stars with 46 reviews). In short, many people didn't like it, and bad reviews are not going to help attracting potential visitors.

Lixing Cable Car is dependant on how much of a tourist magnet Huaqing Palace is (which is not under their management) - 4 stars out of 623 reviews. Some people find it a tourist trap but many like it as well. So there might be some potential there.

Based on the impression from tourist reviews, I would expect the visitorships of SOA and UWX to decline and of the other two attractions to be stable (perhaps with some upside). Anyone knows about the revenue and profit for each of these attractions? That will give a better intuition on how good the business is.

That is a rather unconventional way of looking at a business.

On the contrary, I think many tourists especially local tourists visiting Shanghai and Xiamen will likely visit the two attractions.

I think you may be able to get some statistics by searching for Chinese reviews on Baidu too. I didn’t try that. Unless most of the visitors are ferried by their tour buses or school buses to the aquarium, I guess very few will say that they are the must-visit attractions (SOA and UWX are out of the top 40 in their respective cities in terms of popularity). And trying to attract visitors by offering cheap concessions to tour groups won’t be as profitable as an attraction with great reviews and word of mouth from fellow visitors... just compare them to SEA aquarium.

Kinda of agree on the statement. It is difficult for attractions without a historical background to be a continuous draw. Something bigger and more gimmicky may just take over its place.

A tourist only has a limited time to visit a particular city and they will be more interested to visit the "more gimmicky/I can go home brag to my townfolks" attractions. Seen in this light, the ranking of tourist attractions is perhaps a good factor to determine if an attraction is a continuous draw. Maybe VB can start tracking the ranking of Straco's attraction. We could see the correlation between the visitorship and ranking.

In addition, the fall in aquarium visitorship of Straco's attractions could be due to the opening of Chimelong Ocean Kingdom Park in mid 2014.