TEA 2016 Theme Park Index

[Viator]

To quote Animaniacs,



The annual TEA Theme Park Index has officially been released, showing increases and decreases for many of the theme parks around the world.

http://www.teaconnect.org/Resources/?id=235

So, I'll let this go as it should. What do you think of the numbers? Do you put stock to it? What are your thoughts of the increase to 8 Million guests for USH for 2016? Comment below!!

 

[quinnmac000]

To quote Animaniacs,



The annual TEA Theme Park Index has officially been released, showing increases and decreases for many of the theme parks around the world.

http://www.teaconnect.org/Resources/?id=235

So, I'll let this go as it should. What do you think of the numbers? Do you put stock to it? What are your thoughts of the increase to 8 Million guests for USH for 2016? Comment below!!

Japanese numbers seem accurate based on the news reported consistently throughout the year....but I think if anything the fact that all the water parks in orlando went down last year doesn't bode well for Volcano Bay.

 

[Brian G.]

Japanese numbers seem accurate based on the news reported consistently throughout the year....but I think if anything the fact that all the water parks in orlando went down last year doesn't bode well for Volcano Bay.

Yea, that's looking way too much into a less than a percent change - other than Aquatica, which obviously went down due to the SeaWorld name.

 

[quinnmac000]

Yea, that's looking way too much into a less than a percent change - other than Aquatica, which obviously went down due to the SeaWorld name.

All the top waterparks in the US were either stagnant or trended negative. At the same time, it was warmest year since 1880. I would argue heat should've brought more people to water parks but instead it didn't do much.

 

[JoeCamel]

It also looks like people are staying closer to home. The six flags parks are doing quite well (if you believe TEA's numbers)

 

[P@n!K_Sw1tC#]

It also looks like people are staying closer to home. The six flags parks are doing quite well (if you believe TEA's numbers)

This is probably the biggest story of the report. Factors of Orlando terrorism, bad local press, delayed attraction openings, and election uncertainty played important roles in the decline of destination-based tourism. Clearly, people opted to keep their trips closer to home last year. Looking like the trend may continue this year based on recent hotel occupancy numbers. Doesn't look like Pandora or Volcano Bay will have any real positive offset of the decline, although they may do enough to level out the downward turn.

 

[UOR92]

I'm shocked concerning a few numbers:

1. Merlin Entertainment Group is higher than the Universal brand. I mean, sure, they own Legoland and a few international parks, but that surprises me. Should it?
2. 14% increase for USH is pretty fantastic. It still amazes me the drawing power and staying power of Harry Potter. More of HP in all of the parks, especially international, will only serve to push Universal farther up that list.
3. 4% increase for USF is great, seeing that there wasn't anything new introduced last year. USF is now a couple hundred thousand from surpassing Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios.
4. All Disney parks experienced decreases, albeit incredibly minimal. That's surprising to me as well.
5. Poor SeaWorld.

 

[ThemeCrafter264]

Merlin owns a lot of midway attractions throughout the world, including brands like sea life, dungeons, Madame Tussauds, Shrek Adventure, observation towers and all the other resort parks.

 

[UOR92]

Merlin owns a lot of midway attractions throughout the world, including brands like sea life, dungeons, Madame Tussauds, Shrek Adventure, observation towers and all the other resort parks.

I did a little bit of research on those and so I know their properties. Just confused as to how they're more of a draw? Probably because they own so much.

 

[quinnmac000]

I did a little bit of research on those and so I know their properties. Just confused as to how they're more of a draw? Probably because they own so much.

They are also present everywhere. From Vegas to Brazil to New York to Japan To London. All those places small attendances add up quite a bit.

 

[Parkscope Joe]

This is probably the biggest story of the report. Factors of Orlando terrorism, bad local press, delayed attraction openings, and election uncertainty played important roles in the decline of destination-based tourism. Clearly, people opted to keep their trips closer to home last year. Looking like the trend may continue this year based on recent hotel occupancy numbers. Doesn't look like Pandora or Volcano Bay will have any real positive offset of the decline, although they may do enough to level out the downward turn.

...except UOR attendance grew (and is still slightly under reported in this estimate)

 

[UOR92]

They are also present everywhere. From Vegas to Brazil to New York to Japan To London. All those places small attendances add up quite a bit.

Yeah, you're right. Legoland is a great park, at least the one on Orlando so I can imagine the others doing well for themselves. On top of Thorpe Park and their European counterparts.

 

[ThemeCrafter264]

Merlin owns a lot. It owns 100+ midway attractions in 20+ countries and 4 continents (making 44% of the 2016 revenue). 40 new Midway attractions are opening between 2016 and 2020. There are 8 legoland parks in 6 countries and 3 continents (making 34% of 2016 revenue). The 6 resort theme parks in 3 countries make 22% of the 2016 revenue. However, it is very important to note Merlin owns over 3000 hotel rooms (with plans already in place to add 2000 new accommodation rooms by 2020).

 

[Mad Dog]

I always take TEA with a grain of salt. Interesting to look at. Some entertainment value. But I don't give their figures a whole lot of credence. They're just basically guess estimates in the case of USA parks.....

 

[UOR92]

I always take TEA with a grain of salt. Interesting to look at. Some entertainment value. But I don't give their figures a whole lot of credence. They're just basically guess estimates in the case of USA parks.

So then who's number's actually amount to anything believable?? I always see TEA but never anyone else.

 

[Latveria]

LOL @ Seaworld numbers. Next year they'll be out of the top 25! Sad!

 

[Mad Dog]

So then who's number's actually amount to anything believable?? I always see TEA but never anyone else.

The only reliable numbers would be the park companies themselves, and they don't usually give out actual numbers of attendance per park(except the Japanese Parks). TEA's methodology uses things like Tourism numbers for an area, airport numbers, hotel occupancy etc. and then divvies up the results. Like I said, it's entertaining to look at , but there's nothing official about them....(Example: Sea World, a few years ago, came right out and criticized TEA's numbers and said they were not close to accurate for Sea World)

 

[darkridelover]

Look, completely made up numbers people think are real. The friends I have who know intimately what some of the true attendance figures are always have a huge laugh at how wrong the TEA guesstimates are.

 

[WAJAS]

The regional parks seem over reported, and the destination ones seem under reported for the most part. I'd say most of the SEAS parks are correct aside from SWO, which had stagnant attendance year over year between last year and this. Universal is definitely on the low side. Merlin is most likely correct simply because of the volume of attractions they own. I'd say the Asian parks have the most accurate attendance numbers, but I wonder why that is. All in all, I wouldn't give to much credit to these numbers.

 

[GadgetGuru]

This is gonna be a long post...

This is probably the biggest story of the report. Factors of Orlando terrorism, bad local press, delayed attraction openings, and election uncertainty played important roles in the decline of destination-based tourism. Clearly, people opted to keep their trips closer to home last year. Looking like the trend may continue this year based on recent hotel occupancy numbers. Doesn't look like Pandora or Volcano Bay will have any real positive offset of the decline, although they may do enough to level out the downward turn.

This is the first summer that the Orlando terrorism attack last year would really affect. It happened late enough into the summer that vacations were already booked. (I'm assuming these events don't cause many last-minute cancellations, unless refund policies are changed because of the event). A lack of strong IPs (Kong, Avatar) probably didn't help at all on the Orlando front. Brexit was also fairly late into the summer, so I'm not sure if that strongly affected these earnings at all.

Poor SeaWorld.

I think we're starting to see SeaWorld being forced to transition from a national theme park chain to a regional theme park chain. There's no expectation that any Six Flags or Cedar Fair park would make worldwide attendance records. Yet, they get more combined annual visitors (and have higher market caps) than SeaWorld.

Either that or an entertainment company (WB?) could view a SeaWorld buyout as a $2B way of quickly entering the USA theme park market. I don't see that happening though.

Merlin owns a lot. It owns 100+ midway attractions in 20+ countries and 4 continents (making 44% of the 2016 revenue). 40 new Midway attractions are opening between 2016 and 2020. There are 8 legoland parks in 6 countries and 3 continents (making 34% of 2016 revenue). The 6 resort theme parks in 3 countries make 22% of the 2016 revenue. However, it is very important to note Merlin owns over 3000 hotel rooms (with plans already in place to add 2000 new accommodation rooms by 2020).

Merlin is weird. They have midway attractions everywhere - both large tourist areas and places like Auburn Hills MI, which is just a rich suburban area. In comparison to Disney World, they're unbelievably accessible. I'm shocked that Disney or Universal hasn't tried to build more regional attractions. (I know DisneyQuest, but that opened at a terrible time).

All the top waterparks in the US were either stagnant or trended negative. At the same time, it was warmest year since 1880. I would argue heat should've brought more people to water parks but instead it didn't do much.

The Disney waterparks had a small decrease, which probably isn't that big of a deal. There's also a lower-bound established for Volcano Bay. It's highly unlikely that VB will have less people than Wet + Wild (except that VB opened in May and won't have a full year).

The big question is what Universal establishes a win as. Does coming in 4th nationally mean VB was a success? What about beating Aquatica but losing to the Disney parks? I don't think VB is going to drive major guest spending, so there's going to be an attendance component that dictates if Universal is happy with VB.