Accesso Technology Group PLC's (AIM:ACSO, OTC:LOQPF) latest new business win, the adoption of its Horizon ticket and visitor experience platform for Saudi Arabia’s Qiddiya City, is encouraging and resassuring news ahead of financial results next week – that’s the view of City analysts.
Qiddiya is located southwest of Riyadh and spans over 300 square kilometres. It is part of Saudi Vision 2030 and will include a theme park, Six Flags Qiddiya, and a large water park, Aquarabia.
Accesso will deploy its Horizon ticketing and visitor management system, supporting guest benefits, services and entitlements through a single platform.
The Accesso platform is expected to support further attractions, as they’re added to the large-scale project.
"With the Accesso Horizon solution, Qiddiya City will have the future-proof tools to shape and deliver stellar experiences to visitors, setting new standards for entertainment excellence in the region,” Accesso chief executive Steve Brown said in a statement.
Analysts at Shore Capital, in a note, highlighted that ‘state of the art’ Horizon would serve as the backbone for the entire portfolio of attractions and entertainment opportunities being developed in Qiddiya.
“We find this morning’s news encouraging and should provide investors with some reassurance regarding the Group’s pipeline in the Middle East which previously appeared to be facing difficulty,” Shore Capital analyst Katie Cousins said in a note.
“The use of Horizon can provide scale for Qiddiya City, as well as a unified platform for operational management across the entire ecosystem.”
The Shore Cap analyst added that there appears to be ‘lots to go after’ as the Saudi Vision 2030 progresses.
At the same time, Shore Cap points to January’s trading update – which revealed that earnings were anticipated ahead of market expectations – and that Accesso’s results are due next week (on 15 April).
“Whilst we remain conscious of the consumer backdrop, in particular within the US, we continue to view ACSO as well placed to support it increasingly diversified client base and invest in its offering.”
The broker repeated a ‘Buy’ recommendation for the London-listed share.
Elsewhere, Peel Hunt also sees Accesso as a ‘Buy’ and with a 600p price target implies some 50% upside to the current market price.
“The [Qiddiya] site aims to attract 10 million guests a year and if accesso is the sole provider of ticketing, it would present a material earnings opportunity for the company,” Peel Hunt analyst James Lockyer said.
Lockyer points out that Accesso currently makes around $8.5 million from its existing Six Flags integrations, serving some 22 million guests a year (excluding the Cedar Fair), so, he estimates it to be a $4 million opportunity before factoring any upside from ‘upsells’ through food and drink orders.
He also noted that the Six Flags and Aquarabia attractions are just part of the Qiddiya project which also includes a Dragon Ball theme park and ‘Speed Park’ that will be centred around a Formula 1 race track.