Disney Theme Parks Still Top Draw Record 167.2 Million People Visited Biggest Parks This Year
If you built it they may come, but if you market it big-time they’ll come in droves.
That was the lesson this year at Disney Co., owner of the four best-attended theme parks in the United States.
The most-visited site in the nation in 1997 was the Magic Kingdom, where a record 17 million people visited the park during its 25th anniversary celebration. The Orlando park’s turnstiles let in 3.1 million more people than in 1996, an increase of 23 percent over the 1996 tally.
Worldwide, the Magic Kingdom lost out to another sister park, Tokyo Disneyland, which with 17.3 million visitors became the world’s most visited theme park.
Playing a crucial role in the Magic Kingdom’s attendance was a 16-month marketing campaign for its 25th anniversary. The campaign included heavy advertising, dressing up Cinderella’s castle like a birthday cake, special tour packages and personal touches such as visitors receiving stickers with the date of their first visit to the theme park, said Tim O’Brien, southeast editor for Amusement Business.
Smaller regional amusement parks, such as Elitch Gardens in Denver and Riverside Park in Agawam, Mass., also saw attendance grow significantly this year, according to the trade publication Amusement Business.
A record 167.2 million people passed through the 50 most-frequented amusement parks in North America this year. The larger theme parks don’t release attendance figures, but Amusement Business calculates the attendance.
The Magic Kingdom - which together with Disney-MGM Studios and Epcot Center make up Orlando’s Walt Disney World - stole the first place spot from California’s Disneyland. The Anaheim, Calif., park, which held the No. 1 slot nationally for the past two years, brought in an estimated 14.2 million visitors, a 5 percent drop from last year.
Orlando’s other big theme parks rode the coattails of Magic Kingdom’s popularity and a successful tourism year for Florida.
Rounding out the top five spots were Epcot at Walt Disney World with an estimated 11.7 million visitors; Disney-MGM Studios with an estimated 10.4 million guests; and Universal Studios Florida with an estimated 8.9 million visitors.