TEA Attendance Report, 2007

I'm not 100% sure why I'm writing this... hopefully someone out there will find it interesting, or maybe it will merely confirm my complete dorkdom.

Last week the Themed Entertainment Association (of which I recently became a member) released their attendance analysis for theme and water parks worldwide.

Now, I'm gonna go out on a limb and assume no one reading this has actually read the report, so here's the top:

Theme Park Chains:

1. Walt Disney Attractions, 117 million visitors


2. Merlin Entertainment Group, 32.1 million visitors


3. Universal Studios Recreation Group, 26.4 million visitors


4. Six Flags Inc, 24.9 million visitors


5. Busch Entertainment, 22.3 million visitors


6. Cedar Fair Entertainment, 22.1 million visitors

There's a big drop off after that. For the record, Merlin Entertainment owns Legoland parks and a lot of parks in Europe. Busch Entertainment owns Busch Gardens (obviously) and SeaWorld Parks. Cedar Fair owns Knott's Berry Farm, Cedar Point (yay Julie!) and a number of regional parks-- they acquired the old Paramount Parks chain several years ago.

Let's start with the obvious, Disney is obnoxiously ahead of everyone else. Their overall attendance comes from 11 worldwide parks, which is a lot, but similar in number to everyone else on the list other than Uni, which only owns 4 parks. In fact, Uni's showing is fairly respectable considering their total park count. Their 4 parks are of very high quality, and though Islands of Adventure has run into some stagnation problems (more on it later), I personally consider them to be the value player in the industry (low cost full-fledged get away vacations for a very low cost).

For the record, this figures are not released by the parks themselves, and are complied by TEA and Economic Research Associates. The only chain to dispute the findings is Busch, and if there reports are correct, they should be just behind Universal Studios at number 4.

I cut off the report at 6, starting with 7 there's a large drop-off to groups with under 10 million in attendance, and most of them are extremely regional.

Now, as far as individual parks go:

1. Magic Kingdom (at Disney World), 17 million visitors (+2.5%)


2. Disneyland California, 14.9 million (+1%)


3. Tokyo Disneyland, 13.9 million (+1.5%)


4. Tokyo DisneySea, 12.4 million (+2.5%)


5. Disneyland Paris, 12 million (+13%)


6. Epcot (at Disney World), 10.9 million (+4.5%)


7. Disney's Hollywood Studios (at Disney World), 9.5 million (+4.5%)


8. Disney's Animal Kingdom (at Disney World), 9.49 million (+6.5%)


9. Universal Studios Japan, 8.7 million (+2.5%)


10. Everland (Korea), 7.2 million (-4%)


11. Universal Studios Florida, 6.2 million (+3.3%)


12. SeaWorld Florida, 5.8 million (+1%)


13. Disney's California Adventure, 5.7 million (-4.5%)


14. Pleasure Beach (UK), 5.5 million (-8.3%)


15. Islands of Adventure, 5.4 million (2.5%)


16. Ocean Park (Hong Kong), 4.9 million (12.3%)


17. Sea Paradise (Japan), 4.77 million (flat)


18. Universal Studios Hollywood, 4.7 million (flat)


19. Busch Gardens Tampa, 4.4 million (+1%)


20. SeaWorld California, 4.2 million (flat)


21. Hong Kong Disneyland, 4.15 million (-20%)

Okay, so some analysis. Disney's newest park in Hong Kong had a tough sophomore year, down 20%. This is as the long standing competitor in the area, Ocean Park, picked back up some of this attendance. It's clear that Disney has to offer a lot more at this location to make it the destination its envisioned as-- for those that don't know, this park is literally on a island a mile off the mainland. Cool idea, but one undersized park clearly isn't enough to support it, and since its such an investment to get there it suffers from lack of "what do you want to do today?" appeal.

The park that people always assume is in trouble had an amazing year-- Disneyland Paris, formerly EuroDisney. It's 13% is impressive, and easily the biggest mover on the list. Despite popular opinion, this park never had an attendance problem. Really its flirt with bankruptcy had to do with lower than expected per capita spending and about 3 too many hotels (the place is about 40 minutes from Paris, and though I've never been, I hear there's a nice place to stay or two in that city).

Universal Studios best performing park is actually in Japan, very interesting. It was another great year for Japanese parks. Islands of Adventure continues to idle along, no real new attractions since its opening in the late 90's. Harry Potter's mini-theme park should do a lot to boost that parks attendance, as should the park's next door neighbor (Universal Studios Florida) coming coaster. That coaster, codenamed Project Rumble, will be the tallest coaster in Florida and feature a vertical lift hill-- a rendering of it is the leader to this article.

Despite common expectation, Disney's Animal Kingdom did not overtake Disney's Hollywood Studios (formerly Disney-MGM Studios) as the #3 Park at Walt Disney World, though it moved agonizingly close. The opening of the Finging Nemo musical and continued popularity of the Expedition Everest coaster helped give it another solid gain. I one day expect this park-- the second largest in the world, to sit right behind Epcot and solidly in front of DHS.

Disney's California Adventure (DCA) was the only US Park to face a decline. The $1.1 Billion overall planned for the park could not have come at a better time. However, there's an interesting artifact in effect here. Theme park attendance, in instances where there are more than one park on a given property, is based on the FIRST park a visitor goes to. DCA is literally right across a small esplanade from Disneyland.

Realistically, these two parks have an attendance of 20.6 million, finishing in first place. But also of note, Disneyland almost universally opens 1-3 hours EARLIER than does DCA. Meaning if you're up early, you go to Disneyland first, accounting for their attendance only, even if you wander over to DCA for the majority of the day (which of course, you wouldn't). I'm sure Disney has much more accurate stats that they keep to themselves. Point is, as much fun as it is to bash DCA, the park still gets solid attendance.

Overall attendance in the US had a strong positive move considering how mature an industry it is. Parks in Asia are showing the volatility inherent in the newness of the industry there. Frankly I think its yet to be seen whether the Chinese in particular will endorse a Disney Park. Disney's recent flirt with Australia may have been the better near-term play for the company (but we all know that's not what they have in mind). Ultimately I wonder if the Hong Kong park was a mistake. They were so driven to get a park into China as soon as possible though. The better situation would probably have been a standard-sized Australia park, coupled with a giant Disney World-style destination in mainland China, this would have left them with three equally spaced parks in Asia, with the largest of them at the geographic center.

Those are my thoughts at this time. Anyone make it all the way through? Questions welcome.