DL and DCA 2007 Attendance Numbers Are Out

[HydroGuy]

I saw these a few weeks ago and am just getting around to posting it here.

This report is the more respected for theme park attendance around the world:

"Themed Entertainment Association/Economics Research Associates' Attraction Attendance Report 2007" www.connectingindustry.com/downloads/pwteaerasupp.pdf

DL attendance was up 1% and DCA fell 4.5% and also fell from the #7 spot to #8 behind Sea World Orlando. This certainly gives ammo to DCA critics.

DL held on to its #2 spot worldwide behind MK at WDW.

WDW numbers were up much more than DLR numbers. I am not a tourist expert but if I had to guess I would say that Florida is benefitting more than California from international (especially European) tourist spending because of the weak dollar.

Here were the numbers for North America from page 10:

1. Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World in Orlando, 17.0 million, +2.5 percent
2. Disneyland in Anaheim, Calif. 14.9 million, +1 percent
3. Epcot at Walt Disney World in Orlando, 10.9 million, +4.5 percent
4. Disney Hollwood Studios at Walt Disney World in Orlando, 9.5 million, +4.5 percent
5. Disney's Animal Kingdom at Walt Disney World in Orlando, 9.5 million, +6.5 percent
6. Universal Studios Florida at Universal Orlando, 6.2 million, +3.3 percent
7. SeaWorld Orlando, 5.8 million, +1 percent
8. Disney's California Adventure in Anaheim, Calif., 5.7 million, -4.5 percent
9. Universal's Islands of Adventure at Universal Orlando, 5.4 million, -2.5 percent
10. Universal Studios Hollywood, 4.7 million, 0 percent

For those interested in attendance here is some other info:

TEA/ERA 2006 Report: www.connectingindustry.com/pdfs/TEA-ERAAttendance06.pdf

Annual Totals In Past Years: www.scottware.com.au/theme/guide.htm - click on "Attendance Graphs" and then "Annual Visitor Totals:

Scholarly Study by UCLA: www.anderson.ucla.edu/documents/areas/ctr/ccp/ThemeParkAttendance%28color%29.pdf

 

[audrabolster]

Wow, what a cool thing to read about. I think that once all the new changes are done at DCA, it might pick up more!

 

[DLR29]

Yes, I saw this a couple weeks ago and was not surprised. Hopefully in a few years with all the new additions, DCA can get up there where it belongs.

 

[Grumpy'sWife4Ever]

I honestly don't think that there is much effort put into advertising or hyping DCA......here on the West Coast, we hear about DL constantly, there are commercials every day on every channel, and there is little to no mention of DCA at all unless it is an afterthought (use park hopper tickets and see our other park...you know the one, it used to be a parking lot....) Hopefully once the refurbishment is done, they'll start to push it more.....

 

[HydroGuy]

I agree with the comments about the new work on DCA. After spending $1 billion you better believe they will market the daylights out of it. Since they will not be finished until 2012 we are not going to know for another 5 or 7 years. But as they do the work over the next few years we should get some preview of what to expect as far as attendance. I think we will see a significant increase in DCA attendance because of this.