KidZania launched with 21 brands

Every child's city of dreams, which afaqs! introduced to its readers on May 14, has finally opened its doors in Mumbai. KidZania's 14th operational outlet in the world was inaugurated by 26 per cent strategic stakeholder actor Shah Rukh Khan on August 29. India joins the list of the KidZania outlets in countries like Chile, Indonesia, Japan, Kuwait, Malaysia, Mexico, Portugal, South Korea, Thailand and United Arab Emirates.

The company has already started running television commercials on English channels targeting SEC A and B. Recently, the company organised a flash mob in R City Mall on August, 15.

KidZania is an indoor family edutainment theme park that emulates the workings of a real city. The indoor park will be open all seven days a week, with ticket prices in the range of Rs 1000 per kid. Targeting children aged 4 to 14 years, the theme-park features over 60 establishments including banks (Yes Bank miniature), university, fire department, radio station (Radio City branded), chocolate factory (Cadbury Dairy Milk branded), shopping store (Central and Big Bazaar miniatures), newspaper office (Times of India) and a doughnut store (branded by Mad Over Donuts), amongst others.

A few other establishments that are unique to KidZania Mumbai include Bollywood Acting Academy, pottery studio, KalaShetra Art (culture club) and dabbawala (boxed lunch delivery service).

Paras Chandaria, owner of Comcraft Group (which holds the franchise for KidZania in India) says that the next KidZania outlet will come up in Delhi, tentatively by 2015. "We got the licence for India in September, 2008 while the location (R City Mall) was finalised in March, 2011. Finding a suitable location is one of the biggest hurdles in this."

The entire stake holding will remain same for all the outlets that are planned in India. The Delhi outlet will be followed by an outlet in Bengaluru.

Sanjeev Kumar, director and chief executive officer, KidZania India, says, "Parents and teachers today are looking for new ways to motivate children and every activity at KidZania is aimed at inspiring, educating, entertaining and empowering children through real-life role play experiences."

The company will invite underprivileged children to experience the KidZania centre for the first 10 days, before opening it to the public in the first half of September.

KidZania Mumbai is being launched with 21 brands that include Big Bazaar, Birla Sun Life Insurance, Cadbury's Dairy Milk, Central, Coca-Cola, Godrej Security Systems, Hardy's, Hyundai, Kellogg's' Chocos, Mad over Donuts, Radio City, Star India, Times of India and YES Bank.

ImagiNation Edutainment India is the company behind the setup.