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Attendance report

Robbie

Hyper Poster
In all the Smiler news, it seems to have been missed that the new TEA attendance report came out today, and can be read here:

http://www.teaconnect.org/images/files/ ... 150603.pdf

Here's the latest on the UK parks:
Alton Towers: 2,575,000 (up 3%)
Legoland Windsor: 2,500,000 (up 7.3%)
Thorpe Park: 2,100,000 (up 5%)
Chessington: 1,600,000 (up 6.7%)

Good result all round - is it the family fare (CBeebies, Angry Birds) that's done it or just the general climate?

Both Disneyland Paris parks each dropped 4.7% but the other French parks (Puy Du Fou, Asterix, Futuroscope) went up 9.9%, 11.1% and 13.7% respectively, suggesting Disney really need to pull their fingers out.

Helix has done great business for Liseberg, with an 8.4% increase.
 

gavin

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This is one of the few proper goon things I love looking at every year. Thanks. I'll have a look through when I've got more time later and make a few proper comments.
 

Pink Cadillac

Giga Poster
(My scatter-brained thoughts are assuming these reports are January to January)
Paris is a sad story, but I'm not too shocked and it's not far out from what they deserve. I heard the resort was benefiting from Ratatouille, but as it opened half way through the year, I didn't expect it to have much of an impact for 2014.
For those who have been to Tokyo, do you believe Magic Kingdom is 2 and 4 million ahead?
WDW's rise is surprising. New Fantasyland has been developing over the past few years, but only the 7DM opened that year late May which to me doesn't warrant a 4% rise. Maybe Harry Potter traffic decided to make a visit while in the area or Frozen fever caused families to choose Disney as their holiday? Idk
I've heard about Universal Studios Japan being a very crowded park and I'm not surprised with their attendance growth. *waits for new gate*
Poor SeaWorld. Lose the circus performances and focus on creating actual habitats for your creatures. Plus coasters duh.
 

peep

CF Legend
Universal have done amazing all round and it's only going to get better for them. Unfortunately the Japan resort has no space for expansion and a second gate would be quite far away, potentially in a different part of the country.

I'm a little surprised by the Disney Paris figures and it'll be interesting to see how they develop over the next few years (advertising the different seasons etc).

Overall it was a great year for the industry and it's all looking rather promising.
 

mouse

Giga Poster
That was a really interesting read, and I'm pleased with the overall increase in visitor numbers to all of the attractions :). I'm also surprised by Disneyland Paris' result, any ideas on what caused the decrease?
I would like to see the percentages for the much smaller parks to see whether they too are increasing. Hopefully they are, but its possible that as the larger parks become even more popular they take business away from the smaller attractions.
 

Hyde

Matt SR
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Good to see overall park attendance trending upward around the globe, though not good seeing Six Flags and Cedar Fair down. Busch Gardens also saw zero growth over last year, and SeaWorld is still in a tail spin after Blackfish.

Delving further into the numbers on the top 20 U.S. attendance figures (Page 31):

- SFMM (-2% change) and SFGAdv (0% change) combined for an overall net loss of top Six Flags parks.
- Knotts (0% change), Canada's Wonderland (-1% change), Cedar Point (-4% change), and Kings Island (1% change) combined for an overall net loss of top Cedar Fair parks.
- BGT (1% change) and BGW (-1% change) negated to zero out, with Seaworld Florida (-8%) and Seaworld San Diego (-12%) still fledgeling from back media.

So where does the overall U.S. growth in numbers come from?

You guessed right, Disney and Universal. All parks under these two firms showed overall gains in attendance (IoA stayed flat at 0%). USF especially saw a 17% gain in attendance, thanks in part to the new Harry Potter expansion.

So while numbers are a net positive for America, only a few park operations truly benefited from 2014.
 

JKM

Mega Poster
I can't belive that park such as Gardaland is on the top of the Europa list. How come Heide Park can't get more visitors than this italian one. Its not bad Park, but is small, and in my opinion, Heide Park has better attractions.
 

gavin

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Pink Panther said:
For those who have been to Tokyo, do you believe Magic Kingdom is 2 and 4 million ahead?

Yes. Orlando is a huge international draw with visitors from all over the world. The fact that Tokyo is so ridiculously high when it's much more of a "local" park in terms of visitor percentages is pretty astounding.

JKM said:
I can't belive that park such as Gardaland is on the top of the Europa list. How come Heide Park can't get more visitors than this italian one.

Because it sits on the shores of Lake Garda, which is a hugely popular tourist area. There will be large numbers of people going because they're in the area on holiday anyway. It's part of Lake Garda as a whole destination. Heide Park is the destination; it's not going to get the casual visitors that Gardaland does.
 

JoshC.

Strata Poster
Might be worth saying that the figures for the Merlin parks should be taken with a big pinch of salt; Merlin haven't disclosed their attendances figures since 2009, and any numbers since then are more 'guestimates' than accurate figures. (Don't know how accurate other parks' figures are in these reports mind).
 

nadroJ

CF Legend
Six Flags Mexico only saw a 1% increase?! That's crazy considering the investments they made!
 

gavin

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Pink Panther said:
The infamous Tokyo queues must be when people have visited during public holidays/weekends.

No, the infamous Tokyo queues are because the park gets 17.3 million visitors annually. That's HUGE and is very clearly more than just a weekend and holiday market. Those kind of numbers just don't allow for quiet periods.

It's enormously popular with locals as it fits in with the whole bulls**t "kawaiiiiii!!" aesthetic that's so endemic there. I used to work at a Tokyo university, and the majority of my students (all female) had annual passes. Many people in Tokyo with passes will just call in for a few hours in the evening, which is very easy to do due to location and excellent transport links, and all of those will count towards the gate numbers.

Couple that with the fact that it's the cheapest Magic Kingdom park in terms of an on-the-gate, one-day ticket, and it's unsurprising that it gets huge visitor numbers. Just out of interest, here are the prices for the same type of ticket - a one-day, one-park ticket at each Magic Kingdom - in USD:

Tokyo: $55
Hong Kong: $64
Paris: $77
California: $99
Florida: $105

Not taking into account the value of the Yen against the dollar etc., the Tokyo park, which is closest to the Florida park in terms of size and attractions, is potentially around half the price.

Anyway, some other thoughts after looking at the report in more detail. Obviously my interest at the moment is more with the Asian parks, especially China, so I'll focus on that.

No real change in numbers with the 3 Asian Disney parks makes total sense as there's nothing new at any of them. I think the Tokyo parks are pretty much saturated to be honest and will stay around those numbers for a while. Hong Kong also hasn't opened anything new, but has managed a slight increase despite that, which is an excellent sign. Those numbers will stay around the same next year as well, maybe taking a slight dip, but should get a boost the following year after Iron Man Experience opens.

No surprise with the massive boost at Universal Japan after Harry Potter.

Songcheng Park is a bit of a pisstake to be honest. Their massive boost in numbers is mostly due to a huge, 5,000 seat theatre which has opened recently. By all accounts the show's spectacular, but personally I don't feel it's accurate to include it in the park visit numbers.

Ocean Kingdom breaking the worldwide top 20 in it's opening year is no surprise, and is great news with regards to the idea of the area becoming a multi-park resort. It's also great to see that the Chinese public is willing to pay top whack for a top-class theme park. As far as I can tell, it's the most expensive theme park by quite a long way in mainland China at around US$56. A lot of visitors will have a hotel/park/circus package, which is good as it shows that the Chinese are willing to visit these places as destinations in themselves.

It is a little surprising though to think that one park has boosted the Chimelong Group into the top ten of worldwide operators. As a chain, they're still quite small in terms of number of attractions, though I guess those do include 2 of the busiest theme parks in Asia, (Paradise and Ocean Kingdom), a hugely popular safari park and the world's busiest water park. I'm assuming they're also including visitors to their circuses - one each attached to Paradise and Ocean Kingdom which are separately ticketed - into those figures as well. As I've been typing that, I've realised that it's not all that surprising at all.

It's interesting to note that only 1 Fantawild park broke the Asian top 20, though hardly surprising since they focus on "smaller" (no Chinese city where they operate is actually small) cities. From personal experience, their parks don't seem to ever get beyond mildly busy at best. It's also interesting to note that they've completely dropped out of the list of top park operators, despite opening more parks, though those might appear on next year's list thinking about how recently those places have opened.
 

Pink Cadillac

Giga Poster
gavin said:
No, the infamous Tokyo queues are because the park gets 17.3 million visitors annually. That's HUGE and is very clearly more than just a weekend and holiday market. Those kind of numbers just don't allow for quiet periods.

It's enormously popular with locals as it fits in with the whole bulls**t "kawaiiiiii!!" aesthetic that's so endemic there. I used to work at a Tokyo university, and the majority of my students (all female) had annual passes. Many people in Tokyo with passes will just call in for a few hours in the evening, which is very easy to do due to location and excellent transport links, and all of those will count towards the gate numbers.

I still don't get why MK queue's aren't as bad. It's very rare to see queues over 120 minutes. The have a similar amount of attractions and Extra Magic hours can't make that much of a difference. That's what I meant to get at in my first post (though bringing TDS into it was stupid).

EDIT: Nevermind I think I get it now.
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