Its post visit to the spectacular aquarium! Here is the much anticipated musing for you where I shall share my detailed analysis, first-hand experience and observations from this trip.
Come with me on my flashback journey and evaluation of the amazing trip that will be divided into several entries talking about different topics.
First topic: The brief initial stages & visitor market observations.
Upon entering the gantry, way before the aquarium, we are greeted with friendly staffs. We then step into the bonus maritime experiential museum that spreads out on a path filled with historical exhibits. Guess what, this is a bonus as every customer can experience it before reaching the aquarium with no additional charges.
The museum is not your usual boring artefact displays. Instead it is indeed experiential, with hands on activities available. More about the trail will be elaborated in the next entry 2.
After the engaging and bonus educative trail, we join the queue into the aquarium. Along the queue lines, there were tangibles displayed, souvenir-like products were retailing on the wall shelves. Also artifact displays and informative panels. These actually give bored or impatient customers something to ogle at.
True enough the crowd was at its peak; allowing me to have an accurate observation of the variety of mixed customers that can be classified into a number of variables.
Variety of mixed customers
There were customers as young as babies in prams to the silver haired folks and even the physically impaired like wheel-chair bound users. What more, it was an international crowd. There were the locals, Westerner, Asian and even a few Middle Easterner tourists. Very well received attraction I must say, to be able to draw such a mass market.
Zooming in, there is a very wide age range of customers.
It seems that majority were families, hence more adults (>25years old) and children (<12 years old). While pre-teens and young adults (<25years old) like myself were less, and the elderly (>50years old) were the minority.
Therefore, I deduce that this attraction attracts customers from all stages of the family life cycle. Most of them being at the establishment stage of parenthood. Secondly, students like me at the preparation stage and lastly, the retirees at their reintegration stage.
The crowd also consisted of both genders. However, I cannot conclude whether the aquarium appealed more towards male or females, probably both as the ratio seems almost equal from what I saw.
Next, the international crowd showed that there were not only local visitors but tourists as well. Meaning there are both day and staying visitors. Due to the bundled pricings and promotional packages provided by RWS tied up with this attraction, there could be more staying visitors. While day trippers or locals like myself would be less.
Thanks to the advanced transport network in Singapore and accessible Sentosa Island where S.E.A Aquarium is strategically located, visitors can reach this attraction easily. This attracts visitors using all forms of transportation, regardless, in the form of the taxi, bus, train, Sentosa express or boardwalk. From what I experienced, most tourists and local visitors arrive via the Sentosa express as it was packed to its brim during noon time.
Hence I might advise you (carrie) to take the free shuttle bus RWS8 from Vivo City which is less crowded!
Oh and during my visit I managed to talk to some customers. Via the brief conversations with a working professional from India and a family from china, I learnt that it was their holiday period. Now this probably explains the higher number of Indian and China customers during my visit!
This was interesting as it seemed that the aquarium specifically knew who they had to cater to. Announcements and customer reminders made were always broadcast in multinational language instead of just English.
I also deduce that most long haul tourists like Europeans and Americans are most likely to visit during their summer (June) holidays as I didn't see much westerners when I visited in the month of May.
Visitors from neighbouring countries like Thailand and Malaysia probably use their long weekends to have a quick visit just like how Singaporeans does vice versa.
Lastly, in my opinion or to what I observed, as the aquarium attracts a mass visitor market, every customer has different lifestyles, wants and needs. It ranges from busy working professionals, students, babies to elderly seeking a relaxing solace. Be it to escape from the hustle and bustle, or for play, all patrons visiting the Aquarium have a common want, which is to have an enjoyable time.
In all, I feel that this S.E.A Aquarium attraction has done particularly well in identifying their visitor market and then catering to it.
It is very obvious that this aquarium do not specifically have a niche market. Instead, they are classified as a mass visitor market attraction based on all aspects of the target market. Hence they probably focus on the lifestyle, needs and wants of the customers instead of the other variables like age or genders.
Signing off, X
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