There's never a dull moment at a theme park, and the same can be said about theme park stocks. Industry leader Disney (DIS +1.20%) competes with Comcast (CMCSA +1.31%) and to a lesser extent SeaWorld Entertainment (SEAS +3.99%) on both coasts. And there are plenty of other operators of gated attractions fighting for turnstile clicks.
How is the industry doing as we head into this pivotal summer travel season? The Themed Entertainment Association (TEA) teams up with infrastructure consulting firm AECOM in the springtime of every year to put out their annual global attractions attendance report.
Many of the publicly traded theme park operators don't break out their attendance figures by venue, and Disney doesn't put out a tally of its global turnstile clicks at all. The TEA/AECOM report is a popular way to get an estimate of how the players are doing, and this year's update had a surprise or two up its sleeve.
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It wasn't a surprise to see that the industry improved dramatically in 2022 relative to 2021 outside of China, where shutdowns last year led to a sharp decline in visitors. The 25 top theme parks in the world drew 178.5 million visitors in 2022 according to the report, a 43% surge over the prior year.
Starting lines matter, of course. Attendance more than doubled at Disney's two parks just outside of Paris largely because they had several prolonged closures through 2021. The original Disneyland park in California experienced a 97% spike in attendance, mostly because the iconic attraction was closed for the first four months of 2021.
Comcast's busiest park in 2022 was Universal Studios Japan. It attracted 12.35 million, skyrocketing 125% from 2021's guest count. The Universal park outdrew Disney's two Japanese attractions with the debut of Nintendo's (NTDOY +0.00%) Super Nintendo World. It's great news for Comcast, as Super Nintendo World opened in California earlier this year, with an even larger version coming to Florida in 2025.
Image source: Getty Images.
This doesn't mean that crowd levels are hitting new highs. Just 3 of the 18 most-visited parks in the world topped their 2019 visitor levels last year. Comcast's Islands of Adventure along with Disney's two parks in Paris were the only ones to surpass their pre-pandemic performance. New rides and experiences -- and in Comcast's case, taking advantage of a restrictive reservations system at Disney World -- helped make those three attractions stand out.
Disney is still the lion king of the hill here. A whopping 8 out of 10 of the planet's most-frequented theme parks in 2022 carry the Disney banner.
The industry is also in better shape than just what the attendance figures suggest. A common bullish theme among the leading players is the increase in average revenue per visitor on this end of the pandemic.
Last year, Disney was saying that the average guest was spending 40% more for a day at one of its domestic parks than in 2019, a combination of higher prices and new premium offerings. The new math is why attendance doesn't need to reach new high-water marks for theme park operators to set financial records.
This is a good time to warm up to the theme park operators that make up a dynamic segment of travel and tourism stocks. Business is moving in the right direction for Disney and its smaller peers, and monetization improvements are making the bottom-line gains even better.
