It could flop, let's be fair. The UK general public have had years of WORLDS FIRST ONLY ONE IN THE WORLD YOU HAVE TO RIDE THIS NOW OR YOU'LL DIE and, avoiding the chicken/egg argument for another tie, that sadly is how the market has been in recent years.
It remains to be seen if a good, solid ride can start to change that perception, or indeed if it will be enough to draw people in to visit BPB.
If I'm honest? I don't think it will have that big of an effect down this way, regardless of the marketing of it. I don't think people are going to drive up the M6 in their numbers for a ride that isn't the biggest, the tallest, the fastest etc... But that is my own cynical pessimistic view of it, and I'd love to be proven wrong. Whether it can draw in more people locally, or bring back customers from previous years who may not have visited the park for a while, that'll be a better test and I think they'll probably succeed in increasing their visitors in that demographic.
If they built a 500ft accelerator out over the Irish Sea, 100% they'd see a massive climb in visitor numbers, especially down this end of the country. People would flock to ride the new tallest, fastest, scariest coaster and tell their friends all about it.
But then they'd not go back to the park. If, and this is the crux of it, they can get enough people in to ride Icon and realise what a great ride it is, they can encourage people to visit not only for the first time, but to go back and want to ride it again.