The World's Most Popular Theme Parks

Summer is just around the corner and that means theme parks around the world are preparing for high season. Ahead of a busy summer, AECOM and TEA released their Global Attractions Attendance Report which highlights visitor numbers at major theme parks and museums in 2018. If those numbers are anything to go by, 2019 is going to be another lucrative year. In 2018, attendance at theme parks climbed 4 percent in all major markets, fueled by the addition of extra gates, the continued leverage of blockbuster hits and the construction of countless resort hotels.

The Magic Kingdom at the Walt Disney Resort near Orlando in Florida was once again named the world's most-visited theme park and it brought in 20.86 million visitors in 2018. That figure represents a two percent increase on 2017. Disneyland Park at Anaheim, California, came second last year with 18.67 million visitors while Tokyo Disneyland came third with total attendance of 17.9 million. Given that Disney dominates the list of the most popular theme parks, it hardly comes as a surprise that Walt Disney Attractions is the theme park group bringing in the most visitors by quite a distance. In 2018, they had total visitor numbers of 157 million while Merlin Entertainments Group were a long way behind with 67 million visitors.