The Covid pandemic made the past 14 months a literal roller coaster of a ride for both theme parks and their fans.
Parks shut down or didn’t open at all last spring, and although some did reopen by summer, it was with strict capacity limits and stringent health and safety measures that put off some customers and definitely dented the fun factor for others.
Here’s a look at how things are shaping up in 2021 for this part of the travel and tourism sector, and how prospective visitors can make the most out a theme park vacation as the pandemic winds down.
Pre-pandemic, things had been going well for the sector. The top 20 North American theme parks drew 159,108,000 visitors in 2019, 1% more than the year before, according to the 2019 TEA/AECOM Theme Index and Museum Index.
To draw even more visitors, park operators were rolling profits back into much-hyped, big-budget new attractions like the Jurassic World Velocicoaster at Universal Orlando Resort’s Islands of Adventure in Florida and the Marvel-themed Avengers Campus at Disney California Adventure Park in Anaheim.
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People haven’t forgotten those debuts were in the pipeline.
“A lot of families are opting into going to theme parks this year,” said Trish Smith, a Kansas City, Missouri-based travel advisor affiliated with the InteleTravel network of home-based agents. “I’ve actually had more bookings at this point this year than I did in 2019.
“There are so many new attractions coming that a lot of people are like, ‘Yeah, I don’t want to miss out on that, and I want to be the first,’” she added.
Demand is especially pent-up in California, where parks didn’t reopen until this April.
In fact, Michael Erstad, senior analyst, consumer for research firm M Science, said theme parks could see a return to former attendance levels as soon as next year. “I certainly think it’s a possibility,” he said. “It will all depend how things go with the virus for the rest of the year.
“I wouldn’t count [a rebound] out.”
Consumer data insights firm Cardify has found, unsurprisingly, that theme parks saw a big drop in consumer spending last year but “were able to recover a bit” by last summer by reopening with capacity restrictions. Now that cities and states are relaxing pandemic restrictions, parks are seeing what Cardify terms the “silver lining” for park operators — a new “sharp increase” in spending.
Cardify also found in a survey of 1,044 consumers that 72% are excited to return to amusement parks after the pandemic, more so than movie theaters (68%) or bars and clubs (67%). Only in-person concerts (79%) and sporting events (74%) are more eagerly awaited.
Theme parks “are in a much better spot” relative to cinemas, cruises, air travel, hotels and other entertainment options, said Erstad at M Science.
As at ski resorts, at theme parks “a lot of the experience is outdoors,” he said, and therefore less risky in terms of exposure. “You do queue up for rides, but over the last year they’ve made enhancements to improve the purchasing decisions for food and beverage so you do a lot of things electronically.”
So, where are thrill-seekers headed?
There are essentially two theme park markets in the U.S., although there is some crossover between them. Large destination parks — such as Walt Disney World, Universal Orlando Resort and SeaWorld Orlando, clustered together in central Florida — draw both domestic and international visitors for longer vacations, while regional parks, sometimes smaller and less heavily themed, attract more of a drive-in, day tripper demographic from nearby areas.
Examples of the latter type of park would include the 27 theme and water park properties operated in North America by Grand Prairie, Texas-based Six Flags Entertainment Corp. Some smaller yet highly themed parks, such as Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, straddle the line between the two categories.
(Interestingly, Disneyland boasts a global destination park profile but effectively operates as a regional park, drawing most visitors from its local southern California market. That said, the park — currently restricted to Californians — reopens to all visitors in full on June 15.)
