Amusement Park Profitability Case

Strategy / Data Analytics Power Day case (SDA — Strategy & Data Analytics rotation). Opens with conceptual questions about an amusement park business, then dives into calculating park profitability under different operational assumptions. Tight 45-minute round; the case runs full length. Requirements Phase 1: conceptual warm-up — define the levers of an amusement park's profitability (ticket revenue, per-visitor in-park spend, operating costs, capacity constraints, seasonality). Phase 2: build the P&L for a specific operating scenario the interviewer specifies (e.g. "a 5,000-capacity park running 200 days per year at 70% utilisation"). Walk through revenue, variable cost, fixed cost, and net profit. Light mental math expected. Phase 3: sensitivity / scenario analysis — "what happens if utilisation drops 10%?" or "what is the break-even ticket price?" Identify which lever is most impactful. Notes The graded signal is structure, not arithmetic accuracy. State the framework before any number is computed: Profit = (Ticket Revenue + In-Park Revenue) - (Variable Cost per Visitor × Visitors + Fixed Cost). Most candidates skip this and start multiplying. Mental math: the interviewer expects round-number reasoning, not precision. 5000 × 0.7 × 200 = 700,000 visitors/year is the right granularity. Calculating to four significant figures wastes time. The in-park spend lever (food, merchandise, photos) is the most-overlooked source of revenue in candidate answers. Probing it unprompted is a quality signal. For sensitivity questions, name the dominant lever explicitly: in amusement parks it is usually utilisation (operating leverage on fixed costs) or per-visitor spend (high margin). Quote the elasticity in plain English: "a 10% drop in utilisation compresses margin disproportionately because the fixed-cost base doesn't shrink". Preparation Drill the P&L decomposition skeleton until it is automatic: revenue side, cost side, then break down each into 2-3 components. Practise mental arithmetic with round-number anchors — multiply two 3-digit numbers, divide three-digit by two-digit, get within 10% of the true answer in 15 seconds. Build a sensitivity-talking pattern: name the lever, sign the impact, magnitude it qualitatively (small / moderate / large), justify the magnitude with one sentence on operating leverage or unit economics.