No one can deny that so far 2020 has been an unprecedented year for theme park attendance across the globe due to the COVID-19 closures. Although many of the large theme park operators across the US including Disney and Universal and indeed across the world have started to reopen their gates, with limited capacity and the remaining threat of COVID-19, attendance is still very low in comparison to the numbers we would usually expect.
The 2019 TEA/AECOM annual attendance report was released this week. Although it may be hard to remember times before COVID-19, theme park attendance during 2019 wasn’t affected by the current pandemic so should give a fair assessment of where the top theme parks were and will hopefully get back to over the coming years.
It is always a lengthy read but tucked away in the facts and figures are some interesting trends worth paying attention to, especially for fans of Universal Orlando Resort and Walt Disney World.
A quick word on methodology: The statistics cited in the TEA/AECOM report are a combination of self-reported statistics from parks and publicly available financial reports. Though these numbers are great for looking at overall trends, they are no means exact, and are at best, rough estimates of overall attendance at theme parks.
Quick Comparison in changes from 2018 to 2019
In order for you to do a quick comparison yourself here’s TEA/AECOM’s full list of the top 10 best-attended theme parks in North America in 2018 (as well as percentage change versus 2017)
- MAGIC KINGDOM Up 2.0% to 20,859,000 from 20,450,000
- DISNEYLAND PARK Up 2.0% to 18,666,000 from 18,300,000
- DISNEY’S ANIMAL KINGDOM Up 10.0% to 13,750,000 from 12,500,000
- EPCOT Up 2.0% to 12,444,000 from 12,200,000
- DISNEY’S HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS Up 5.0% to 11,258,000 from 10,722,000
- UNIVERSAL STUDIOS FLORIDA Up 5.0% to 10,708,000 from 10,198,000
- DISNEY CALIFORNIA ADVENTURE Up 3.0% to 9,861,000 from 9,574,000
- UNIVERSAL’S ISLANDS OF ADVENTURE Up 2.5% to 9,788,000 from 9,549,000
- UNIVERSAL STUDIOS HOLLYWOOD Up 1.0% to 9,147,000 from 9,056,000
- SEAWORLD ORLANDO, ORLANDO Up 16.0% to 4,594,000 from 3,962,000
And, this is TEA/AECOM’s full list of the top 10 best-attended theme parks in North America, just released in the 2019 report (as well as percentage change versus 2018)
- 1 MAGIC KINGDOM Up 0.5% to 20,963,000 from 20,859,000
- 2 DISNEYLAND PARK Up 0.0% to 18,666,000 from 18,666,000
- 3 DISNEY’S ANIMAL KINGDOM Up 1.0% to 13,888,000 from 13,750,000
- 4 EPCOT Up 0.0% to 12,444,000 from 12,444,000
- 5 DISNEY’S HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS Up 2.0% to 11,483,000 from 11,258,000
- 6 UNIVERSAL STUDIOS FLORIDA Up 2.0% to 10,922,000 from 10,708,000
- 7 UNIVERSAL’S ISLANDS OF ADVENTURE Up 6.0% to 10,375,000 from 9,788,000
- 8 DISNEY CALIFORNIA ADVENTURE Up 0.0% to 9,861,000 from 9,861,000
- 9 UNIVERSAL STUDIOS HOLLYWOOD Up 0.0% to 9,147,000 from 9,147,000
- 10 SEAWORLD ORLANDO, ORLANDO Up 1.0% to 4,640,000 from 4,640,000
With a 4.0% attendance boost overall to the top 10 theme park groups worldwide, taking the total number of visitors to 521.2 million in 2019 the world’s population continue to vote with their feet and say yes to theme parks.
Now, let’s take a deeper look into some of the figures in this extensive report and uncover some interesting trends….
Disney’s Hollywood Studios gets a slight boost
Although Disney’s Hollywood Studios still sits in last place in terms of attendance out of the top Walt Disney World parks, it has seen the biggest increase out of the four parks this year with a 2.0% rise. With the opening of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge at the end of August, surely Disney were hoping for a larger boost than this. Having said that, it was the much anticipated Star Wars : Rise of the Resistance that adoring fans were waiting for and this didn’t open until December 5, so unsurprisingly this hasn’t had a massive impact on the 2019 numbers.
Attendance stays rather static across Walt Disney World parks
Last years report saw a huge increase of 10.0% for Disney’s Animal Kingdom park thanks to the continued success of Pandora – The World of Avatar which opened in 2017 and which had catapulted this park to the #2 spot behind Disney’s Magic Kingdom. Disney’s Animal Kingdom continues to hold this spot but only saw a 1.0% increase on attendance in 2019.
Disney’s Magic Kingdom’s attendance increased slightly by 0.5% to 20,963,000 with Epcot remaining completely static.
Disappointing 0% attendance growth for Disneyland Resort
While Disneyland saw a 2.0% increase in 2018 and California Adventure had a 3.0% rise, 2019 has seen a 0% attendance growth for both parks. This for many may come as a rather large surprise, considering the much anticipated Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge opened at Disneyland on May 31, 2019.
Universal Islands of Adventure sees a bump while Universal Studios Florida and Universal Hollywood stays stagnant
Ironically, it was exactly the opposite last year with Universal Studios seeing the bump and Islands of Adventure staying stagnant. Unfortunately for Universal Studios Hollywood their attendance stayed flat in 2019.
With the highly anticipated Hagrid’s Magical Motorbike Adventure opening at Islands of Adventure on June 13, 2019 Universal were undoubtedly expecting an influx of guests and they certainly did flock which explains the 6.0% increase in attendance in 2019, the biggest increase of any in the list of Top 10 North American theme parks.
SeaWorld Orlando has minimal attendance increase with SeaWorld San Diego seeing large decrease
After the 16% growth in 2018, which propelled it once again into the Top 10 Theme Parks attendance list in North America, 2019 saw a 1.0% rise in attendance. SeaWorld had put itself back on the map after many hard years. We really hope SeaWorld can get through the current tough times and emerge seeing increasing attendance figures in the future.
It is certainly depressing viewing for SeaWorld San Diego which saw a 8.1% decrease in attendance in 2019 taking it to 3.485,000.
Other US Theme Parks see positive trends
There have been postive attendance boosts for many of the other top parks across the US and in Canada. The number to the left of the name of the park gives their current ranking in the top 20 North American theme parks based on attendance. These include:
- 11 KNOTTS BERRY FARM – Up 3.0% to 4,238,000
- 12 BUSCH GARDENS TAMPA BAY – Up 1.0% to 4,180,000
- 13 CANADA’S WONDERLAND – Up 4.0% to 3,950,000
- 14 CEDAR POINT – Up 1.5% to 3,731,000
- 16 KINGS ISLAND – Up 1.0% to 3,521,000
- 18 SIX FLAGS GREAT ADVENTURE – Up 1.5% to 3,451,000
- 20 SIX FLAGS GREAT AMERICA – Up 2.0% to 3,169,000
Interestingly, Cedar Fair reported the largest increase, totalling 7.8% across their portfolio of parks.
For anyone wanting to view the complete report, you can read it here. It has complete attendance listings for top theme parks operators, theme parks, water parks and museums across the globe.
To re-read our round-up of last years report (2018) you can find it here, SeaWorld and Disney Parks Make Big Gains While Universal Slumps in New Attendance Report.
Although majority of 2020 has so far seen doom and gloom across the theme park world with over 3 months of closures, hopefully the top US parks will be able to ride out the current COVID-19 storm and come out of it with fans still wanting to head back and enjoy their favourite theme parks. We hope to see attendance figures returning to what we have seen here and beyond in the coming years.
