Arun K. Chittilappilly, Executive Chairman and Managing Director of Wonderla Holidays Ltd., is a visionary leader in the amusement park industry. Armed with a Masters in Industrial Engineering from Swinburne University, Melbourne, he has been the architect of Wonderla’s expansion and success. After completing his Masters, Arun became actively involved in the operations of Wonderla Kochi (then Veegaland), which was then a 2-year-old venture started by his father, Kochouseph Chittilappilly. Arun was instrumental in building the Wonderla brand and taking it to a national scale with the establishment of Wonderla Amusement Park, Bengaluru in 2005, their largest park project. In 2014, through an IPO, the company raised 180 crores from capital markets to fund its expansion plans in new cities. Under his leadership, Wonderla has collectively welcomed over 43 million visitors in the 25 years of its operations, making it India’s largest and most-visited amusement park chain. His strategic foresight led to the addition of a resort to Wonderla Bengaluru campus in 2012, opening of the Hyderabad Park in 2016, and the Bhubaneswar Park in 2024 and The Isle by Wonderla, a premium boutique waterside resort in Bengaluru in 2025. With the Chennai Park nearing completion, Arun’s aggressive expansion plans continue, with multiple projects under discussion all over India.
