The health crisis has cast a heavy scent on the culture sector for several months in 2020, and at the start of 2021. For Puy du Fou, the economic damage is considerable.
The Vendée park has seen its turnover fall by 43% due to health restrictions.
"
We are contacted by suppliers who will have to go out of business because of their activity in the park,
" deplores Nicolas de Villiers, president of the park, at the microphone of BFM Business.
Read also: Despite the crisis, the Puy du Fou opens its first foreign park in Spain
The Puy du Fou already knows that it will have to delay its reopening, initially scheduled for April 3.
This will be conditional on the restrictive measures that the government will take to contain the pandemic.
But the group can console itself with the opening of its first international park: Puy du Fou España has been welcoming the public, near Toledo, since March 27.
This park adapts the concept of Puy du Fou to Spanish history.
Due to the pandemic, the reception capacity is however limited to 30% of the total capacities of this new park.
Read also: Le Puy du Fou defends itself following accusations of animal abuse
Next goal: China
This opening confirms the international vocation of Puy du Fou, which now aims to open a new variation of its concept in China, by 2025. This park will a priori be located in Shanghai.
“
Forty people [employees of Puy du Fou] are already in China to prepare the establishment of a show that will serve as a scout for the opening of a park,
specifies Nicolas de Villiers.
We are also going to make a choice concerning the opening of a fourth park abroad by 2030
”.
The group has not yet chosen the country in which it will set up this fourth park.
Could Russia be considered to host it?
“
She is under sanctions.
We cannot do everything we want in Russia, we are stuck as a French company, we cannot work there
”, indicates Nicolas de Villiers.
To read also: The administrative setbacks of the Rocher Mistral, ambitious Provençal “Puy-du-Fou”
Along with these park openings, the Puy du Fou is also expanding into the cinema sector, with the opening of Epique studio.
This film studio should provide the cinematographic world with the sets and services of the 500 hectare Vendée site, its costume workshops, its logistics facilities and its animals.
Objective: to make Puy du Fou a “global brand”, according to Nicolas de Villiers.
