Changes

As cold regions struggled to build water parks that could attract new tourists, different ideas emerged. The first indoor water park was built in Edmonton, Alberta in 1985 at the West Edmonton Mall. This soon proved successful, inspiring other locations , including in the UK, to create their own indoor water parks. In 1994, the first significant indoor water park built in the United States was in Wisconsin Dells at the Polynesian Resort Hotel. The success of indoor water parks made business investors realize that water parks, incorporated within hotels, allowed places to extend the tourist season. The Great Wolf Resorts/Great Wolf Lodge developed as the first company to build hotels around indoor water parks. <ref>For more on recent trends in water parks and indoor water parks, see: https://www.wisdells.com/media/facts/fun-facts.htm & Hamilton 2015: 12 </ref>

Other innovations included developing faster waterslides, new types of water features including tube with mounted crafts, and large rafts that would be sent hurtling down large themed-slides. The Verrückt, located in Kansas City, became the tallest water slide at 168 feet, although it closed down in 2016 due to a tragic accident. The success of indoor and outdoor water parks led to a few trends. First, many existing community pools began to cater to the desire for water parks by adding slides and features such as wavepools. In effect, they became small water parks that catered to local communities during the summer months and holidays. Water parks began to create amusement areas, such as in Wisconsin Dells, where new amusement parks began to develop as the Dells tried to keep tourists around longer. Local recreation centers even began to develop miniature indoor water park features, such as lazy rivers and slides. Water parks, today, bring in about 3 billion dollars annually. Indoor parks and municipal water parks or water parks incorporate within community recreation centres are perhaps the fasted growing segments of the water park industry.<ref>For more on water park trends and industry, see: https://www.ibisworld.com/industry-trends/specialized-market-research-reports/consumer-goods-services/sports-recreation/water-parks.html<ref>