UK Theme Park attendance 2012 vs 2023. Poor Years.

[Chris Brown]

2012 is regularly cited as a dud year when it came to UK Theme Park attendance. The 2012 Olympics, hosted in London, coupled with the 2nd highest yearly rainfall have regularly been cited as reasons for the poor reception of The Swarm at Thorpe Park. The major Merlin parks (excluding Legoland which was in the middle of significant year on year boost) all suffered lower attendance and I imagine this was felt across the board in the UK.

My question, will 2023 be looked back on in the same light? We've had World of Jumanji as a significant new addition however we've had relatively poor weather and we're in the midst of a cost of living crisis. Largely, the summer holidays suffered poorer than average weather, March to May was inclement and summer began 'later' than recent years. More importantly people have been significantly impacted by the cost of living crisis, people have less disposable income and leisure and tourism is often one of the worst impacted sectors in periods of economic instability.

My prediction is that whilst we may not have any fundamental evidence at the moment, this year will be a countrywide significant downturn from the post covid boom that the industry has experienced. I'm very interested to see how this impacts all parks in general but to also understand what, if any, correlation occurs between an economic downturn and what region / target audience parks suffer the most

 

[Matt N]

It’s a very interesting question!

It’s obviously hard to tell without exact figures, which we will not gain until at least the end of 2023, if not well into 2024, but I do feel that 2023 might be viewed in a similar way to 2012.

The summer weather has been similarly inclement to how it was in 2012 here in the UK, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that has driven down numbers to some degree.

Whether the economic struggles have also had an effect is an interesting one. Historically, UK theme parks have actually done quite well during economic downturns due to people’s lower income meaning that they’re substituting foreign breaks for UK breaks. The 2008 financial crisis and ensuing recession produced very good attendance for the UK Merlin parks, and the widely perceived “golden age” of the UK theme park industry in the early to mid 90s was in the wake of a fairly significant worldwide recession. To me, that suggests that the parks can sometimes actually be benefited by economic downturns.

If people are at all interested, I might try and do some statistical investigation of the UK Merlin attendance data that I’ve previously worked on to see if a meaningful correlation exists between attendance and factors such as weather and economic prosperity.

 

[Sandman]

I suppose at the moment it is fairly difficult to say.

Certainly, coming off the back of 2022, I'd expect to see a drop in numbers as the country gradually relaxed and then eventually removed Covid restrictions. Add the cost of living crisis and poor weather (up here in the north west at least) and it makes sense to assume 2023 could have been a bit of a low season for the UK industry.

There's another angle here too though - has domestic tourism benefited from the cost of living crisis with less people affording a foreign holiday? It's certainly been a factor in years gone by.

I'd also been keen to see how Halloween season plays out, as that's always quite a popular period, particularly around the half term break.

 

[Geeky Pastimes]

It's hard to imagine the cost of living crisis has helped UK tourism much when prices for UK hotels and parks have risen so much higher than better European equivalents.

Me and my wife used to get deals for Alton Towers with a night at the hotel, breakfast, and park tickets for £95 in the few years before COVID, since then I haven't seen a deal like that for less than £200