Theme parks are set for a big rebound this summer as much of the country starts to exit Covid restrictions.

And many of the high-tech, low-touch solutions parks implemented during the pandemic to enable limited reopenings are here to stay and, in fact, are proving popular with both guests and park operators.

That’s according to a new study by technology developer Oracle Food and Beverage and Merlin Entertainments, operator of nine Legoland parks worldwide, including California, Florida and, after a year’s delay, upstate New York. (Originally set to open in spring 2020, Legoland New York debuted this July 9 an hour north of New York City in the town of Goshen as the state’s first major new park in four decades.)

Eighty-one percent of respondents in the firms’ Theme Parks Trends 2021 survey are optimistic they’ll soon be able to spend quality time with loved ones at their favorite leisure spots, and 68% said they’ll head back to theme parks, specifically, as soon as they are able.

“The data we have says that people are eager to do this,” said Simon de Montfort Walker, general manager at Oracle Food and Beverage. “The surge of human energy is just remarkable.”

For his part, Rex Jackson, general manager of Legoland Florida Resort, said his Orlando-area property experienced a tremendous response from a pent-up market.

“It’s the desire of families to make up for the lost time they had in summer 2020, and the return of leisure travel has probably exceeded most expectations,” he added. “We’ve seen it here, and I expect to see across many other leisure travel business sectors in the U.S.”

Legoland Florida reopened June 1, 2020 and while initially nuclear families — mom, dad and kids — comprised the bulk of initial guests, now multi-generational groups are returning.

“It’s grandparents meeting with their kids and grandkids for the first time again,” Jackson said.

As those families visit Legoland Florida this summer, they’ll find some pandemic-era precautions still in place, such as social distancing markers and a request the unvaccinated voluntarily mask up.

Legoland coming to New York in 2020
Those will, in time, likely be dropped, but what will remain in place are mobile food-and-beverage ordering, self-service check-in kiosks at the resort’s hotels, interactive smartphone park maps and other technology solutions introduced or enhanced during Covid to allow for safe operations.

“The technology capabilities for which we’ve partnered with Oracle and others, have enabled a better overall guest experience,” Jackson said. “While they may have been initiated and accelerated due to Covid from a health and safety perspective, we’re seeing they’re improvements to the guest experience that we intend to keep moving forward.”

The survey revealed that 67% of respondents, for all their eagerness to travel, do still want some sort of distancing measures to remain in place. Smartphone theme park maps displaying attractions wait times and virtual queues — whereby guests ask for attraction or restaurant access on an app or at a kiosk and are given a return time for a shorter wait — can help space out visitors and reduce time standing in lines.

“The more time we can reduce your … waiting for something — be it a ride or a food-and-beverage offering — that leaves you more time to experience all the attractions we have in the resort, your day is going to be that much better,” said Jackson, noting Legoland Florida has gotten initial positive response from guests about, for example, virtual queues.