Busch Entertainment Corp. has renamed two of its theme parks. Virginia's Busch Gardens Williamsburg now bears the name Busch Gardens Europe, and the Sunshine State's Busch Gardens Tampa Bay is known as Busch Gardens Africa. While the new names reinforce the respective themes for the parks, I wonder if the tradeoff of losing the geographical identification is worth it. Neophytes (especially those outside the U.S.) might assume the American parks are actually located in Europe and Africa. The Virginia park used to be called Busch Gardens: The Old Country, and the Tampa park was known as Busch Gardens: The Dark Continent, so the 2006 names mark a return to their roots. The older names, however, evoked the parks' themes without directly implying that they were located outside the U.S. Other theme park operators have chosen questionable names for their properties. For example, when Universal Studios Florida added Islands of Adventure, a hotel, and the CityWalk entertainment district, it originally dubbed the bulked-up resort, Universal Escape. After everybody scratched their heads and asked, "What the heck is that supposed to mean?" Universal quickly, and wisely, changed the name to Universal Orlando.
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