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2013 Attendance Report

Hixee

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Here's the 'summary' sort of pages for each of the major sections. I've left out all of the 'museums', just focussing on theme parks and water parks. These are in the order they appear in the report.

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(There's no matching figure for waterparks in Europe)

All sourced from the PDF linked by Brookes in the first post: http://www.teaconnect.org/pdf/TEAAECOM2013.pdf

Also should note, I haven't actually read through this all yet, just doing this so people can have a quick glance as the PDF is quite detailed
 

Smithy

Strata Poster
Merlin had a good year, Thorpe's attendance up by 11% and Alton's only 4% during Smilers opening season.

Good to see the parks have bounced back after a poor 2012. Shame there's no figures out for Blackpool because it'd be interesting to see if they're still on a downward spiral.
 

marc

CF Legend
Shocking for dlp and sea world.

So much for the Black Fish programme having no effect, that's a big drop seeing the other Orlando parks had an increase.
 

bmac

Giga Poster
marc said:
Shocking for dlp and sea world.

DLP should be able to bounce back since Disney is shouldering the debt in order to fix its issues.

So much for the Black Fish programme having no effect, that's a big drop seeing the other Orlando parks had an increase.

It's tons more than just Blackfish that has dropped the SeaWorld parks in attendance. Overall spending is down, marketing was absolutely horrid across the board, government shutdowns in Virginia that prevented military members from spending money (i.e. visiting the park), and SEAS favorite excuse since the IPO "The Weather." What is scary is that only a few quarters ago they were reporting record attendance numbers, even amidst the backlash of Blackfish. The real question I have about SEAS is really just what the **** are they doing?
 

marc

CF Legend
If that's the case though about spending and the weather then why are the other parks in the area up? Plus it's not just the Orlando one that's down? I thought the park were saying the programme was not affecting their attendance but the figures say otherwise.

Busch also saw a large drop.

It's got to be a worry that since the take over this has happened.

With Merlin opening the sea life center just down the road they really need to sort their **** out.

Yeah let's hope the new attraction boosts figures, but this time it's both parks down. Granted the weather over this way has been ****.
 

rollermonkey

Strata Poster
Yeah... If all of the Orlando and CA parks were up but both Sea World Orlando and San Diego were down, and the entire Sea World group was down while all the other groups were up, there is no way it was a generalized drop in spending (like 2006) or the weather. I'm calling BS on that one.
 

gavin

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My thoughts, since you're all so desperate to hear them.

Top Ten Groups

It's interesting to see Cedar Fair and Six Flags stagnate since they've added some major additions at some of their parks. I guess it's down to them having a fair few parks with nothing new, and not expanding as a whole chain.

Not surprising to see Sea World falling by quite a bit. I think the results next year will really show us what, if anything, the Blackfish effect entails. The whole thing really didn't kick off until later in the summer, and it will be interesting to see if more people, who maybe went earlier in the year before the film was widely released, will avoid it now, or whether people will generally forget and start going back. I'm thinking the latter. People love a 5-minute cause. Despite a drop, those visitor numbers are still pretty huge.

Very interesting to see Fantawild jump into the top ten. They've got a bunch of new parks opening over the next couple of years as well, and while I don't think it'll be enough to move them up any further up the chart just yet (10 million gap between them and Sea World is a big ask), their numbers over the next few years are going to be very impressive.

World Water Parks

I really don't have much of an interest, but Chimelong really came from nowhere. It makes sense given that Guangzhou is China's third biggest city, has a sub-tropical climate and is very close to a bunch of other huge cities with easy access, massive populations, and no (as yet) major water parks of their own.

American Parks

No surprises. The Californian and Floridian parks are never going to be overtaken thanks to year-round operations and huge branding with Disney and Universal.

Asian Parks

No surprises with Tokyo Disney and Universal Japan staying at the top. That won't be changing for a very long time, if ever. Shanghai Disneyland has the potential to cause a bit of an upset in a couple of years though.

Great to see Hong Kong Disney doing so well. Yes, it's still the smallest of the Magic Kingdom parks, but it's still pulling figures that most other parks could only dream of. They've orchestrated the last few years of operation perfectly since a bit of a messy opening.

Lotte World's shift towards the family market has been a big success, though it personally annoys me that they've added nothing substantial for the teenage/thrill market for 10 years.

OCT East is a strange one, as those figures MUST be including the whole resort, including Tea Valley, which is basically just a botanic garden. If the parks were separated, none would make the top 20 in my opinion.

Songcheng Park just shouldn't be on this list. It's an open-air museum, not a theme park as most people would understand it.

The same goes for Hakkeijima Sea Paradise. It's a free to enter park, so its inclusion on the list is very misleading. Those figures will include local dog walkers and teenagers sitting around next to the sea and drinking without using any of the park's facilities. I've said the same thing every year.

I'm quite surprised to see Happy Valley Shenzhen placed above Happy Valley Beijing, though admittedly there's not much in it.

Europe

I honestly think visitor numbers to Disney Paris have basically plateaued, and that if they're down one year, they'll be up roughly by the same percentage the following one. The fact that they're still so ridiculously far ahead of other parks kind of shows that they must be hitting their maximum expected numbers. The disparity between the main park and the studios is still shocking though.

It always surprises me to see the "big" UK parks hovering around the 2m-2.5m visitors mark, which seems pretty low until you realise that the UK is so small and the parks have little international draw. The European market as a whole comes across as really small when you see that a park with less than 1.4 million visitors can make the top 20. What's even more amazing is the quality that is offered by a lot of these parks (Phantasialand, Heide etc.), considering such "low" visitor numbers.
 

Robbie

Hyper Poster
Problem for DLP is it's a bit rundown, and for UK folks almost as easy to get to Florida as Paris. So you've got to wonder how many of Magic Kingdom's extra 6% have been 'robbed' from DLP's -6.9%?

With Thorpe and Chessington bouncing back, it must have been the Olympic effect for 2012 as they had barely anything new in 2013. Makes Merlin's knee-jerk panicky promotions for Thorpe look even more stupid (although, they could argue that's what reboosted attendance).

rollermonkey said:
Yeah... If all of the Orlando and CA parks were up but both Sea World Orlando and San Diego were down, and the entire Sea World group was down while all the other groups were up, there is no way it was a generalized drop in spending (like 2006) or the weather. I'm calling BS on that one.
Yep, and SeaWorld Orlando actually had a major attraction opening last year which you'd think would offset any 'natural' drops. Blackfish definitely had an effect.
 

roomraider

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As far as I can tell Haichang group own 1 major theme park (Dalian's Discovery Kingdom) and a ton of Aquariums around China. Not sure they really count either.

In the next few years OCT and Fantawild are only going to move up. And Wanda joining the fray with 6 parks will probably cause a shift too.
 

gavin

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^ Probably right, but how many of Merlin's guests come from the Sea Life Centres, observation wheels/towers, dungeons and other random crap? They have relatively few actual theme parks.
 

peep

CF Legend
Gavin makes a very interesting point in regards to Disneyland Paris. Another interesting point is that I learned last month that the reason the Walt Disney Studio park has such a little number compared to the main park is that multi day tickets etc only count the first time you enter either park, obviously the majority enter the main park first so all the attendance numbers go there no matter how many times people switch park etc.

So although it looks bad, I think it would be fairer to just put the two numbers together to get a better idea of their attendance figures.

I need to get on my pc and have a proper read of the document to make a comment on numbers.

Sent from my C6903 using Tapatalk
 

marc

CF Legend
Yes Peep I remember reading that as well. They only count you once your whole trip, but surely it would be better to count you twice if you go to both parks.

Peep apparently the system changed and it does register for each park now so them figures are not great.

However they are doing a lot to improve the situation.

The Merlin growth is not really giving the whole story. They have opened up a few new sea life's and Lego things so you would expect their attendance to grow.
 

Ian

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This report is a highlight of my year.

I've inly had chance to glance at it (and I concentrated most on UK parks), but it's looking good!

15% increase for CWOA is amazing, as is the 11% for Thorpe. There doesn't appear to be any evident reason for this (new attractions were lacklustre from that I saw). I guess they appealed to the right people in the right places and offered decent promotions.

Of course, with poor showings last year, they were bound to improve but I never expected double figures.

With general attendance up all across the world, it's obvious that the economy is improving and people are spending again. Good.

I'm also happy Disney Paris is down. There are so many better parks worth going to, maybe people are waking up to that.

I love statistics.
 

rollermonkey

Strata Poster
I know that before the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that TDL was typically #1 in the world... I wonder if it will retake that position, and if so, how long will it take?
 

gavin

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^ There's not a huge amount in it really, and the increase in visitors this year is almost 3 times the increase of Magic Kingdom. I wouldn't be surprised to see it back on top next year.

peep said:
Another interesting point is that I learned last month that the reason the Walt Disney Studio park has such a little number compared to the main park is that multi day tickets etc only count the first time you enter either park, obviously the majority enter the main park first so all the attendance numbers go there no matter how many times people switch park etc.

Would it not count separately for each day? I can understand a park hopper ticket only being counted once per day at the first park, but not so much on a second/third day. The numbers for DLP seem extremely high if multi-day tickets are only counted once.

Thinking about it, the multi-day visitors could go quite a long way to explaining the disparity between the two parks. Think about it: if you have a 3-day ticket, which of the parks are you going to visit for two days?
 

marc

CF Legend
^Thats not the case anymore, it now counts once in each park.

Tbh when we have been we have seen the main park rammed but the studio park empty.

I think people only go to the studio park if they have never been or there is something new.
 

Nemesis Inferno

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Considering Thorpe and Chessie both dropped quite severely in 2012 (10% for Thorpe), it's not that surprising that they both increased in 2013...

I wouldn't be surprised if the Olympics/summer were to blame for it either, rather than either park directly improving themselves, just regaining the visitors that didn't visit the year before... Plus Chessie did get Zufari, and Towers' regain of guests was probably stopped due to Smiler being a pain in everyone's arse and people not going for fear of it not being open...
 
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