The TEA (Themed Entertainment Association) has released their rankings and attendance figures for 2008. The report covers all theme parks world wide, and as could be expected – the attendance numbers at most US theme parks were flat in 2008.
Also as expected, Walt DIsney World’s Magic Kingdom tops the list this year as the most visited theme park in the world – drawing in just over 17 million visitors in 2008. As impressive as that number is though, it’s pretty much even with 2007. As for the rest of the North American theme parks – Disneyland Park in California was second with 14.7 million visitors – a 1% drop, followed by Epcot, Disney’s Hollywood Studios and Disney’s Animal Kingdom to round out the top 5.
Disney also topped the list of European theme parks with Disneyland Paris showing a nearly 6% increase in attendance at 12.7 million visitors – three times the attendance of it’s closest competitor, Europa Park in Germany.
Universal Studios in Orlando showed a slight uptick in attendance with 6.2 million visitors, a 0.5% increase over last year. That gain is erased, however, with the figures for Islands of Adventure – which saw a decrease in attendance of 2.4% last year with 5.3 million visitors.
Attendance at US water parks took a nose dive in the 2nd half of 2008 according to the report, with the sole exception being Sea World’s Aquatica – which opened in March of 2008 and met its expected first year attendance figures in just 6 months. Typhoon Lagoon at Walt Disney World topped the list of US water parks (as well as all international water parks) with 2,059,000 visitors in 2008 – a 1% drop. Blizzard Beach also saw a 1% drop in attendance with 1,891,000 visitors. Wet ‘n Wild continued the bad news for Universal with a drop of 5.1% in attendance last year to 1,300,000 visitors.
Here is the top 10 list for theme parks world wide:
1) Magic Kingdom (Florida) – 17,063,000
2) Disneyland Park (California) – 14,721,000
3) Tokyo Disneyland (Tokyo) – 14,293,000
4) Disneyland Park at Disneyland Paris (Paris) – 12,688,000
5) Tokyo Disney Sea (Tokyo) – 12,498,000
6) Epcot (Florida) – 10,935,000
7) Disney’s Hollywood Studios (Florida) – 9,608,000
8) Disney’s Animal Kingdom (Florida) – 9,540,000
9) Universal Studios Japan (Osaka) – 8,300,000
10) Everland (Gyeonggi-Do, South Korea) – 6,600,000
To see the complete report visit http://www.themeit.com
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