Walibi Holland - History

History

In 1971, the park was opened under the name 'Flevohof'. It was an educational themepark themed after agriculture and farming. Having struggled to compete with more modern family attractions, Flevohof went bankrupt in 1993, and was subsequently purchased by the Walibi Group that autumn, who redeveloped the site as an amusement park. A major winter-long programme of reconstruction saw the park re-open under the name Walibi Flevo on 7 May 1994, featuring the world's first Vekoma suspended looping coaster (SLC), El Condor. The park also adopted the wallaby mascot of its sister park, Walibi Wavre in Belgium. (The name 'Walibi', incidentally, is derived from the first two letters of three towns in Belgium put together to form a single word: Wavre - Limal - Bierges).

The Walibi parks, including Bellewaerde in Belgium, were purchased by Premier Parks Inc. in 1998, who subsequently overhauled the Flevo park, removing the 'Walibi' branding and building 30 new attractions as part of its transformation into Six Flags Holland in 2000. Six Flags's nominal expansion into Europe saw a similar refurbishment of the Belgian Walibi attraction, both parks benefiting from the group's rights to use Warner Brothers characters within them, leading to the creation of a Looney Tunes-themed area and a powered-launch coaster themed around popular comic figure Superman, later changed to the Xpress.

In 2004, Six Flags Holland and its sister parks were purchased by financiers Palamon Capital Partners, who grouped the attractions under the name "StarParks". The park reverted to Walibi branding in 2005; numerous attractions having been rebranded as the sale of the parks also meant the loss of Warner Brothers rights.

In the second half of 2006, the parks were sold for the second time in as many years to the French group Grévin & Cie (Compagnie des Alpes), most notably the operators of the French themed resort Parc Astérix, who also purchased two other Dutch attractions - the Dolfinarium Harderwijk and Avonturenpark Hellendoorn. In 2011 the park was renamed as Walibi Holland, which introduced new mascots.