The summer vacation is on and Coimbatore's children have several options to spend their leisure time - visit friends and relatives, go on a holiday to other cities, attend summer camps, have parties with friends, get new gaming solutions at home, or spend hours in water at theme parks.
In a city that needs a lot more to be done on the entertainment front, ventures related to games for children are an emerging area of opportunity for entrepreneurs.
Toys “r” Urs Kidzone rents out toys for children aged between three months and eight years.
Apart from the toys and games available in the country, it also gets new board games from the U.S. and the U.K. for circulation among the children.
It has a “pretend and play” zone where children can play shopping, cooking, etc in a doll house, shopping area or music stage. Parties are also organised at the shop for children.
Great Digital Shoppe, which sells play stations, has seen nearly 20 per cent increase in demand for games during this vacation compared to last year.
The demand is more for PS 2 and PS 3 and also for hand video games.
With availability of gaming solutions on the rise and the increasing trend towards visiting other cities for summer, outdoor activities are more of camps and coaching classes.
According to Vincent Adaikalaraj, Executive Director of Black Thunder, a couple of new games are added at the theme park every year. It plans to bring in more risk-free rides.
Apart from local residents, those who go on vacation to the Nilgiris also visit the park, he says.
Unlike larger cities, Coimbatore does not have many video game zones. Huge investments are needed to set up indoor game stations.
Many of the rides and games need to be imported and are expensive. But use of these stations goes up only on vacation days.
Hence, it is not viable to have game stations, according to industry sources here.
