Juliana Delaney, CEO of UK visitor attraction management company Continuum, is an expert in the branding game, tapping into the British love of popular culture and the demand for visceral experiences to build a new attractions subgenre.
Continuum currently runs six attractions in the UK, with news of two more hot off the press. The company has just announced it will be collaborating with The Royal Mint on the 1,000-year-old institution’s first ever visitor centre, and it also revealed its involvement in the upcoming Sherwood Forest Country Park in Nottingham, in partnership with Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB).
Other attractions are coming to an end, such as the temporary Coronation Street The Tour in Manchester, which closes this year.
The pop-up attraction took Coronation Street – an established ITV series – and reinterpreted it as a cultural attraction, meeting with an enthusiastic response from fans.
Continuum will partner with ITV a second time to create Emmerdale The Tour, another attraction based on a popular, long-running UK TV drama.
You recently announced Coronation Street The Tour is closing in December. Why is this, and what has been the secret of its success?
This December we’ll be saying farewell to something extraordinarily special. Coronation Street The Tour opened on 5 April 2014, initially for six-months, but due to public demand, extended planning permission was granted by Manchester City Council. In 2016, the site will be returned to owners Allied London for redevelopment.
The attraction has welcomed half a million visitors to the site where TV drama Coronation Street was filmed before its move to MediaCityUK. Guest feedback has been phenomenal – people have loved stepping into TV history. Our tour guides have done a brilliant job bringing the sets to life.
We’re thrilled to be continuing our relationship with ITV for the launch of Emmerdale The Tour, based on the TV saga.
Tell us about Emmerdale
We’re coordinating with ITV to test the operational viability of an Emmerdale visitor experience. From 9 August to 25 October, we worked with coach operators across the UK to deliver tours to the working sets. The experience differed from Coronation Street The Tour, because it was a live set which is used five or six days a week by ITV’s Emmerdale crew. We agreed that trial period to make sure the tour element works for the cast and crew of Emmerdale, as well as for our guests.
What will the Emmerdale visitor experience be like?
Visitors will enjoy a guided tour through the popular exterior sets where the Yorkshire drama has been filmed since 1998. It’s a unique opportunity to see the Woolpack pub and more, with selfie opportunities aplenty.
What’s the formula for translating a popular culture brand into a visitor attraction?
There are three components. First, it needs to be a subject which has an established audience, whether that be Vikings, Romans, or Coronation Street.
Second, there has to be interest. Projects fail when no one’s interested in the subject – all the marketing in the world won’t work.
Third, the audience wants to experience the subject in a visceral way. We can be engaged when reading a book and emotional when watching TV, but we want to experience brands at attractions in a much more powerful, real way, sharing that emotional experience on social media.
Increasingly, we’re seeing the audience doing the marketing for attractions. Emotional engagement goes up another level with a tangible experience. People don’t tweet pictures of themselves watching Coronation Street, but thousands do from the Rover’s Return Inn at the attraction.
How do you apply this formula to leverage a brand?
It’s important to be authentic and stay true to the brand. We worked closely with the Coronation Street production team to deliver what they “live”. Storytelling is also a very important aspect.
We’re on third-generation attractions now. The first generation was glass cases: don’t touch. The second was out of the case: touch and smell. The new way is doing it while sharing it with others.
When we’re developing attractions we’re already thinking about the photo opportunities. I was impressed at Madame Tussaud’s as the figures are not behind barriers – you can take selfies with them. Allowing people to touch, share and engage can revitalise a brand for new generations.
What is Continuum’s Third Way model?
It’s a model to help local authorities [UK local government] running attractions and museums, which have high operating costs and lack the funds to innovate.
We’re having interesting discussions with local authorities who otherwise face the choice of closing an attraction or continuing to run it at a loss, because we can turn attractions from a loss into a surplus.
Our commercial team can turn a struggling visitor attraction into a sustainable business by breathing fresh life into it, centralising services and having cost-effective teams on-site.
We find the story and we find a way to support it with better marketing and commercial activity. We can also create other income generators – for example, corporate events or weddings.
What shape do you think the attractions industry is in at the moment and where is there room for expansion?
It’s survived the recession very well because of the trend towards days out instead of an extra holiday. I’m a great advocate of good museums and love theme parks, but I’m not sure we need more museums – whether free or paid for – or any more theme parks in the UK.
However, I believe there’s space in the middle for cultural visitor attractions and attractions based on popular culture.
What’s next for Continuum?
Within the next five years we’re looking to double the number of attractions we operate in the UK and Northern Europe.
We currently operate several sites across the UK and we’re adding at least two more locations to the portfolio in 2016.
We’re also planning to continue to invest in our own attractions, so we wholly own them and also to partner with other strong brands for operating contracts.
