PARKS

The International Assn. of Amusement Parks & Attractions opened its first non-U.S. office Aug. 1 and officials say it was about time.

Europe has the largest membership constituency of the IAAPA outside of the United States. With 14% of the group's total membership, and 41% of all non-U.S. memberships, Europe is home to nearly 800 IAAPA members.

Bill Sims, IAAPA chairman, told AB "it was time" for a European office. "We have had international representatives throughout the world and they have helped spread the word about IAAPA and have been very valuable to us and have given our members good service. Now, it's time to take our representation in Europe to another level."

Sims said most of the amusement parks, both large and small, in Europe are already members, but an office with greater accessibility to existing members as well as potential members in Europe will help the association grow in several other sectors, including waterparks, zoos, aquariums, and family entertainment centers. "Those are our major growth areas in Europe," Sims pointed out.

Establishing a European office is going to be "challenging," according to Jeff Bertus, who will be heading up that effort. Bertus has been hired as IAAPA's Vice President Europe, and will start off as a one-man office, which he opened Aug. 1. "We are in an office building where we are supported by secretarial and reception help we share with everyone," Bertus told AB.

Bertus has been involved with the Dutch association of parks since 1973 and with Europarks for the past 11 years. He will resign as secretary of Europarks, but will continue to work with them in his new role at IAAPA. In fact, Europarks is moving its office to the same office building as IAAPA. Europarks is the association of individual park associations of 12 different nations.

"IAAPA and Europarks will work very closely together," Bertus noted. "Europarks will continue to be the lobby and will work on governmental issues that concern the industry in Europe. It makes more sense for them to be involved in European governmental relations than it does for IAAPA to do it."

The contacts Bertus have created during his decades of European service to the park industry "made him a natural" to head up the office, Sims told AB.

Bertus said the European office will be able to not only service the European members better with existing IAAPA programs, but will be able to customize the existing programs as well as all future programs to the region. In a way, Bertus said, Europeans will now be "getting more for their membership dollars."