New Rivals Give Disney A Wild Ride Theme Park Competition Heats Up As New Facilities Open From Tokyo To New York

Walt Disney Co. officials speak of “severe competition,” “protecting assets” and “intense challenges” when they talk about their proposed California Adventure theme park adjacent to Disneyland.

It’s not hyperbole.

From Tokyo to New York, competitors are challenging Disney’s theme park supremacy - sometimes head-on. And cities from Kuala Lumpur to Cincinnati are expanding their efforts to take advantage of one of the world’s great growth industries - tourism.

Just the other day, Duell Co., a Santa Monica, Calif.-based designer of theme parks, took a call from a business group in Malaysia. Could Duell designers come and help them design a theme park? “We get calls from all over the world,” said Phil Turner, chief operating officer. Duell is working on three park projects in Indonesia alone.

U.S. companies are racing to build parks at home and abroad. A delegation of Disney executives created a sensation two years ago when they made several stops in Asia as part of an exploratory trip for a possible theme park site. “Someday, somewhere,” Ken Wong, president of Disney’s imagineering unit, says of the Asian mainland.

Not too long ago, theme parks were divided into two groups: Disney parks and others. So clear was the difference that other parks routinely acknowledged Disney’s supremacy in design and execution.

That’s changing.

For its just-opened $110 million Jurassic Park ride, Universal Studios Hollywood hired several former Disney imagineers to help design the attraction, which simulates a trip through a land populated by hungry dinosaurs. The ride opened last month and has been so popular that visitors wait up to three hours for the 5-minute excursion.

The attraction put Universal Studios Hollywood on track to exceed its 5 million annual attendance record.

Moreover, buoyed by the success of CityWalk, its promenade of shops, restaurants and entertainment adjacent to the park, Universal says it expects to replicate that venture elsewhere. “We have a very exportable product nationally and internationally,” said Jim Yeager, a Universal spokesman.

Universal is challenging Disney head-on in Florida and in Asia, where it recently announced plans for Universal Studios Japan, a $1.6 billion theme park in Osaka.

Not to be outdone, Disney also is advancing its stake in Japan, planning on building an ocean-oriented park adjacent to Tokyo Disneyland.

Domestically, Universal, Six Flags Theme Parks Inc., Paramount and others are embarking on ambitious expansion projects at their theme parks, buoyed by increasing attendance. Last year, theme park attendance at the top 50 parks in the United States rose 7 percent, according to Amusement Business, a Nashville, Tenn.-based trade magazine. With 15 million people passing through the turnstiles last year, Disneyland regained its crown as the nation’s bestattended theme park.

Still, competitors think they can challenge Mickey Mouse.

Not only are rivals striving to design thrilling rides that are the equal of Disney, they are weaving movies and merchandising together at the parks, long a tactic successfully employed by Disney.

Now though, Time Warner, Paramount and Universal are expanding on the tactic of linking merchandising, movies and theme park rides.

“Merchandising has become very important,” said Garry Bickett, senior vice president of marketing for Paramount Parks. Among other projects, the unit of New York-based Viacom Inc. plans a $50 million Star Trek attraction with the Las Vegas Hilton. Planned for an opening next summer, the attraction will include sales of Trek merchandise.

Paramount also draws on the movies. It already has a “Wayne’s World” attraction at its Carowinds theme park near Charlotte, N.C., and “Days of Thunder” at all five of its parks - in Charlotte, Cincinnati, Toronto, Santa Clara and Richmond, Va.

Paramount also stages MTV dance parties at its four U.S. parks. MTV is another Viacom unit.

Through its dozen theme parks around the nation, Six Flags Theme Parks Inc. builds companion rides to Batman and other movies and is building merchandising ties, such as those at its Looney Tunes superstores. Time Warner Inc. owns a 49 percent stake in Six Flags. Time Warner’s influence is everywhere - from rides such as Batman to Bugs Bunny World, a children’s attraction at most of the parks.

Later this summer, Six Flags Magic Mountain hopes to have its “Superman The Escape” thrill ride open.

Six Flags is direct about its intentions. “We want to be the No. 1 theme park company in the world,” said Eileen Harrell, a spokeswoman.