All four of the financiers paying into Wildlands adventure park in Emmen have agreed to give them more time to pay back their debts.
Translation by Traci White
Emmen.nu reports that in 2018, Wildlands incurred a loss of roughly 8 million euros. The municipality, Rabobank, construction company VolkerWessels and water pipe company WMD (Waterleiding Maatschappij Drenthe) have all agreed to give Wildlands until 1 May 2019 to pay its outstanding debts.
The adventure park hopes to attract 940,000 visitors next year, which is 100,000 more people than the park had come through their gates in 2018. The park had been counting on drawing in 1.2 million visitors a year, but it has yet to do that since opening in 2016.
In November, the park announced a number of major changes would be made to limit the financial bloodletting. Ticket prices were lowered, more animals would be added to the park and a new visitor route would be developed to improve visibility of the habitats. The board reportedly has faith in the new measures which are based on more realistic visitor numbers.
