brand licensing

Madrid, Wednesday, 12 November 2025.
This past Tuesday Parques Reunidos confirmed a strategic reshaping: selling its US unit, Palace Entertainment, to Herschend Family Entertainment while doubling down on Paramount licensing across its European parks. The pivot reallocates capital and focus from a broad North American footprint to higher-margin, IP-led developments in core markets, accelerating themed-land roll-outs and commercialising studio franchises to boost per-capita spend and day-part diversity. The most intriguing fact: the company is pairing the divestment with an explicit accessibility credential, joining the Hidden Disabilities Sunflower Network, signalling accessibility as both compliance and revenue strategy. Immediate implications for operators and investors include redirected CAPEX, potential renegotiation of shared services and procurement, intensified competition for studio partnerships illustrated by Merlin’s PAW Patrol land, and integration challenges for Herschend absorbing a regional portfolio. For retail and park operators, the move underscores licensing-led productisation, selective geographic consolidation, and an operational trade-off between scale and brand-focused yield enhancement.

London, Tuesday, 28 October 2025.
Merlin Entertainments and Parques Reunidos accelerated Paramount-branded integrations across the UK, US and Europe in 2025, marking a coordinated shift to region-specific IP partnerships that create multiyear content pipelines and family-targeted capital programmes. Merlin is delivering the UK’s first PAW Patrol land at Chessington and expanding Peppa Pig across parks — including a major new Peppa attraction in Dallas–Fort Worth — while Parques Reunidos confirms a wider Paramount alliance for European sites even as it reallocates focus after a US divestment via Palace Entertainment. For retail, F&B and operations teams this heightens urgency around programming and build schedules, guest-flow and capacity planning for family rides, and franchise-aligned merchandising assortments and seasonal windows. Portfolio owners and investors should expect changing valuation levers as operators monetise global IP through licensing-led growth. Immediate priorities are synchronising pipeline timing with product assortments, SKU rationalisation for themed retail, and merchandising strategies that capture uplift in per-cap spend from captive family audiences.

London, Tuesday, 30 September 2025.
Paramount is accelerating its family-park licensing strategy in 2025 by striking partnerships with Merlin Entertainments and Parques Reunidos to deploy compact, IP-led family lands across Europe. The most immediate outcome: the UK’s first dedicated PAW Patrol land at Chessington, opening in 2026, while Parques Reunidos will roll Paramount-branded experiences across its park network beginning this year. For operators, these deals offer faster differentiation, new character-driven retail and F&B revenue, and seasonal programming to drive repeat visits. Operationally expect condensed design and installation timelines, higher throughput planning for preschool attractions, and stricter brand technical standards plus accessibility and sustainability requirements. Financial models favour lower upfront studio costs offset by royalties and marketing co-investment, creating scalable on-site revenue for partners. For retail leaders, the shift signals growing demand for tightly themed, IP-curated merchandise assortments, coordinated seasonal activations, and hotel/secondary-market tie-ins — all opportunities to lift per-capita spend and secure loyal family audiences.

London, Thursday, 4 September 2025.
Merlin Entertainments and Sony Pictures unveiled plans on Wednesday to roll Jumanji‑branded rides, resort hotels and waterpark elements across Europe, starting project planning in 2025. For retail operators this signals a deliberate IP‑licensing strategy: recognizable studio IP will be deployed as a multi‑asset, integrated guest ecosystem designed to lift attendance and per‑capita spend. The most intriguing fact is Merlin’s intent to couple ride engineering, themed hospitality and waterpark operations under one commercially linked product—forcing operators to rethink licensing fee structures, revenue‑share models and cross‑inventory distribution. Expect sharper demand for immersive dark‑ride and trackless suppliers, tighter integration between park and hotel reservation and POS systems, and operational complexity at launch. Competitors may respond with similar studio deals or local experiences. Practical takeaways for retail teams: model revised spend profiles, negotiate lockstep commercial terms for in‑resort retail, and prepare tech stacks for unified booking, inventory and F&B upsell flows for upcoming openings.