The Themed Entertainment Association (TEA) and the economics division of engineering firm AECOM have released their annual attendance report for the 2015 calendar year.
Walt Disney World’s parks beat out the other central Florida theme parks for the most attendance. Magic Kingdom was number one, up 6 percent from 2014, with 20.4 million visitors. According to the Orlando Sentinel, “Epcot, Disney’s Animal Kingdom, and Hollywood Studios visitation increased 3 percent, 5 percent and 5 percent, respectively.” Epcot saw 11.6 million guests, Animal Kingdom had 10.9 million visitors, and Hollywood Studios had 10.8 million.
Universal Studios Florida came in close behind with 9.6 million visitors, a number that is 16 percent above 2014. Universal’s other park, Islands of Adventure, saw an 8 percent increase, up to 8.8 million.
SeaWorld Orlando was about half that at 4.8 million, but did see a 2 percent increase. According to the report, SeaWorld San Diego actually declined 7 percent, the only top 20 theme park in the U.S. to see a decline in attendance.
Disney’s water parks did well too, with Typhoon Lagoon and Blizzard Beach coming in at numbers 2 and 3 in attendance, only behind Chimelong Water Park in China. Each of Disney’s water parks were up 5 percent from 2014.
An estimated 77.2 million people entered the theme parks in Orlando in 2015.
The Sentinel adds that “Universal’s market share last year was 23.8 percent, a percentage point higher than the previous year. Disney’s market share was 70 percent compared with 70.9 percent the year before. SeaWorld’s was 6.3 percent.”
The theme parks do not report actual attendance numbers for the individual parks, so the TEA/AECOM report is widely considered to be the “leading source on visitation.”
News source: Orlando Sentinel and TEA/AECOM report
