KidZania poised to return to Sentosa in first quarter of 2024

SINGAPORE – Children’s edutainment theme park KidZania is set to return to Sentosa’s Palawan Beach in early 2024 after a $3 million makeover that will include new attractions and experiences.

Singapore-listed theme-park developer and operator Sim Leisure Group (SLG) will refurbish the almost 82,000 sq ft space where KidZania was located for four years before it

closed down in June 2020

because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

SLG will rent the entire space from Sentosa Development Corporation (SDC) via a five-year lease, and has the option to renew it for another five years, the company said in a statement to the Singapore Exchange (SGX) on Monday.

SLG also secured the long-term licensing rights for Singapore from KidZania, a privately held Mexican company that owns the international franchise of 26 indoor family entertainment centres across 22 countries.

In addition, SLG paid a further $110,000 to buy all the existing assets, fittings and fixtures at the location from the creditors of the previous operator. These assets include the fuselage of the airplane that has remained in the space that had gone unoccupied since KidZania’s previous operator ended its operations there.

An SDC spokesman declined to comment on how much the annual rent for the site would cost, and was unable to share details of the bids received “due to commercial sensitivities”.

“Over the last two years, SDC has leveraged the central location of Palawan Kidz City to offer family-friendly activities as part of our regular programming within the building. We are glad that these offerings, such as macrophotography and clay modelling workshops, were well-received by our guests,” the spokesman said.

Funding for the entire project will come from internal resources within SLG.

SLG’s board of directors noted that it is “directly complementary” to the group’s existing businesses and “would enhance shareholders’ value in the long term”.

The reopening of KidZania in Sentosa marks SLG’s first foray into Singapore, albeit not for lack of trying.

“We had attempted on previous occasions to enter the Singapore market, but the deals fell through when we could not reach an acceptable compromise, whereas the tender that we had participated in was called off as a result of the pandemic,” SLG executive chairman Sim Choo Kheng told The Straits Times.

The group operates another KidZania amusement park in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur.

It had acquired the loss-making operation from Rakan Riang in late 2020 for about $1.2 million and was able to turn it around within seven months, making a net profit of $1.9 million.

Datuk Sim said that this success hinged upon its proprietary attraction management system, an innovative platform that optimises costs and productivity efficiently, and was developed through his 30 years of experience in the business.

He said this know-how came from the more than 300 projects worldwide developed by the group’s recently acquired sister company that focused on the design and construction aspects of the business.

Among these projects are attractions at third-party operated parks, such as the John Wick: Open Contract ride in Dubai’s Motiongate theme park, Abu Dhabi Sea World and Six Flags in Saudi Arabia, which cost some US$200 million (S$268 million) in development.

As for SLG’s attractions, the group has had 11 years’ experience in running its own parks, which have a total development price tag of some US$30 million.

These include the Escape theme parks in Penang and Petaling Jaya, as well as KidZania Kuala Lumpur. A third Escape park is being built in Ipoh and should be ready by the final quarter of 2023.

SLG’s annual revenue and net profit generated from its theme parks business were around RM56 million (S$16 million) and RM18 million respectively.

The group was listed on the Singapore Exchange Catalist board in March 2019.

SLG shares closed at 31 cents, up half a cent on Tuesday but has risen by more than 85 per cent from a year ago.