It’s one of the most anticipated data drops in all of theme park nerd-dom… Every year, a consulting firm called AECOM partners with the Themed Entertainment Association (TEA) to release an annual report on the ups and downs of theme parks, waterparks, museums, and other “thematic” experiences from the year prior. The annual Global Attractions Attendance Report is a fascinating document that theme park fans should dive into in depth. It’s filled with the highs and lows, global contexts, and stories that permeated theme park news in the year prior.
But most importantly… it also contains a ranking of theme park attendance. To be clear, most theme park operators do not disclose their parks’ attendance, and even if they speak in broad generalities, totals, or percentages at investor calls, they almost never divulge specific attendance figures for specific parks… However, it’s known that many operators do work with AECOM to come up with fairly accurate figures since it’s in the best interest of their share price, financial disclosures, and year-upon-year narratives that their attendance be discussed vaguely, but honestly.
At first glance, 2022’s ranking is pretty expected. There’s the always-first Magic Kingdom. Then Disneyland (which only surpassed Tokyo Disneyland for the number two spot just before the pandemic). Then Japan’s ever-popular-and-packed parks, then Animal Kingdom, EPCOT, Hollywood Studios, etc., with Shanghai Disneyland following, then Universal Studios Florida and Islands of Adventure, with California Adventure coming in at number 13, followed by Disneyland Paris at 14, then Universal Studios Hollywood at 15.
But take a careful look at 2022’s AECOM estimates and you’ll notice that the ranking of parks does not align with their attendance. There’s a reason. Different national and regional reactions to COVID-19 have seen parks return to full operations in varied timelines and with new attendance policies. As a result, while AECOM’s estimated attendance numbers have been updated for 2022, their ranking of parks remains locked in the order in which these parks fell in 2019. That’s on purpose! It’s meant to indicate that TEA and AECOM aren’t certain that 2022’s attendance is statistically representative of the future… yet.
But just for fun, let’s play with their 2022 findings. What happens if you actually re-order the 2022 ranking to align with AECOM’s estimated attendance?
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The Updated 2022 Attendance Ranking
1. Magic Kingdom (17.1 million)
2. Disneyland (16.88 million)
3. Universal Studios Japan (12.35 million)
4. Tokyo Disneyland (12 million)
5. Universal Islands of Adventure (11.02 million)
6. Disney’s Hollywood Studios (10.9 million)
7. Universal Studios Florida (10.75 million)
8. Tokyo DisneySea (10.1 million)
9. EPCOT (10 million)
10. Disneyland Paris (9.93 million)
11. Disney’s Animal Kingdom (9.02 million)
12. Disney California Adventure (9 million)
13. Universal Studios Hollywood (8.4 million)
14. Shanghai Disneyland (5.3 million)
Which brings us to some very interesting findings…
1. Disneyland inches ever-closer to Magic Kingdom
Considering that Magic Kingdom was literally built to be a larger version of Disneyland that would appeal to massive, international audiences, it’s surprising to see that the tiny little California park continues its climb toward Magic Kingdom’s attendance numbers. (In 2019, Disneyland was 2.2 million behind; now, it’s only 320,000 behind.)
It could be that Magic Kingdom will wildly rebound in 2023 basking in the glow of TRON Lightcycle Run, and bounce back even more in 2024, after the end of park reservations changes the way Disney caps the park’s attendance… but Disneyland has always been “the little engine that could,” and its local base helps insulate it from economic and political fluctuations in tourism & travel that affect Florida’s destination parks.
Disneyland surpassing its own little sister would be major industry news indeed, and would speak either to the California park’s rise, the Florida park’s dip, or some combination of both. Especially among rapidly rising prices, a major drop in perceived value, and growing competition that looks likely to start stealing days from Disney, it’s possible that Magic Kingdom may not be number one forever – something no one would’ve predicted a few years ago. If ever that inflection point happens, you can bet that industry fans will be on hand to speculate away…
2. Shanghai Disneyland’s very rough year
For Disney’s recently-reappointed CEO Bob Iger, it must be a major frustration that two big buys he expected to cement his legacy with the company – the purchase of 20th Century Fox and the opening of Shanghai Disneyland – have both become significant albatrosses post-2020. While park fans get to help chip in to support the $72 billion Disney spent on 20th Century Fox through new ticket fees, Genie+, and more, Shanghai Disneyland has so far been less of a golden goose than once dreamed.
Iger worked for decades to forge a relationship with China, where a cautiously-permissive government became willing to grant Disney access to an entire, untapped market – a new, emerging “middle class” shaped by the country’s rapid industrialization, discovering leisure time and expendable income to spare. Shanghai Disneyland was meant to become an open door into Disney consumerism for China’s 1.4 billion citizens – nearly four times as many people as live in the U.S. But many of those doors have slammed shut now, with Iger saying in 2021 that “some of my optimism on China has eroded.”
That’s no doubt in part thanks to the country’s now-ended “zero-COVID” policy, which saw Shanghai Disneyland close for no less than three separate periods in 2022 (including an embarrassing shutdown in October wherein visitors were kept inside the park). So even as the rest of Disney’s parks were in major rebounds by 2022, those COVID policies led to Shanghai’s massive drop-off in attendance. Just 5.3 million people visited in 2022 (less than half of the park’s 11.2 million visitor height pre-COVID). The good news for Disney is that the park’s visitorship will rebound. The question is, will Disney’s relationship with China rebound, too? Or are things about to get awkward for Disney’s first mainland China park?
3. Hollywood Studios vaults ahead… for now
Though Magic Kingdom perennially resides atop theme park attendance figures, Walt Disney World’s other three parks tend to hover several slots down beneath global “Castle Parks”. They also tend to change their rankings on a dime. In 2019, the order went Animal Kingdom (13.8 million), EPCOT (12.4 million), and Hollywood Studios (11.5 million).
That order in 2022 was completely reversed, with Hollywood Studios serving as the highest performer of Walt Disney World’s non-Castle Parks (10.9 million), EPCOT in the middle (10 million), and Animal Kingdom as the lowest (9.02 million). Maybe that’s not surprising. Those three parks are basically in a continuous dance with the most recently-expanded park taking the lead. In this case, it looks like Hollywood Studios is still pulling guests thanks to Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, Toy Story Land, and its major list of E-Tickets.
EPCOT spent 2022 in the midst of a refresh, but the biggest part of it – Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind – opened halfway through the year, almost certainly suggesting that when 2023’s AECOM report is published, EPCOT will launch ahead. And as its last-place finish shows, Animal Kingdom is almost certainly next in the rotation to get something big. (Its last headliner was 2017’s Pandora – The World of Avatar.) At press time, that was shaping up to be a Zootopia and Moana retheme of Dinoland, though we now know Disney is going a different route – a “Tropical Americas” land better suited for Animal Kingdom’s aesthetics and spirit.
But that’s just the beginning. We’ll dig into some of the most shocking discoveries from 2022’s attendance report on the next page… Read on…