The 2022 Global Attractions Attendance Report has been published by the Themed Entertainment Association (TEA) and the Economics practice at AECOM. The TEA attendance report is the industry standard in estimating attendance at the top theme parks and museums worldwide. While Disney does not release attendance figures publicly, the TEA index is widely accepted within the industry as having accurate estimates.

The 2022 Disney World attendance report shows modest to good attendance growth at the Disney World theme parks and perhaps reveals a new normal that Disney executives have been talking about for ages. Over the years, we’ve heard about Disney’s strategy to control attendance to preserve a good guest experience, but not necessarily at the expense of profits. The idea is that Disney could, on purpose, limit attendance to manageable levels to ensure that guests inside the theme parks would have a good time while simultaneously increase per cap spending to ensure the bottom line doesn’t feel the attendance caps. It looks like that strategy is fully in action now.

Even though the attendance figures from TEA are not “official”, Disney CFO Christine McCarthy made comments in August 2022 that seem to back up what’s in this new TEA report – attendance is below 2019 levels, but guest spending is 40% higher than in 2019.

Before we dive too deep into the concept of “lower” attendance and higher guest spending, let’s take a look at the estimated attendance figures for the Walt Disney World theme parks.

North America Theme Park Attendance

We’ll have another article talking about the industry and some interesting trends in a bit, but first, let’s focus on Walt Disney World.

As strong as the percentage increase at Magic Kingdom was, it is still below the 2019 attendance figure of roughly 21 million visitors. Again, if we take executive comments at face value, this is part of a strategy and not something to be concerned about. We’ll talk more about that later.

Looking ahead, we expect a TRON Lightcycle Run bump, but probably not to the extent that Pandora – The World of Avatar helped Animal Kingdom. In 2024, Tiana’s Bayou Adventure will open and Magic Kingdom will gain back some much-needed capacity, but there’s also something else in the works for the world’s largest theme park.

At the 2022 D23 Expo, Disney Parks Chairman Josh D’Amaro presented a Blue Sky vision to expand the theme park “beyond Big Thunder Mountain” into mostly unused space. In the concept presented, D’Amaro and other executives imagined lands and attractions based on Coco, Encanto, and Disney Villains. If that expansion goes forward, it wouldn’t be for a few years (at least), but Disney at least realizes that Magic Kingdom will remain popular and is planning for expansion.

Galaxy’s Edge opened in August 2019 at Hollywood Studios, but the popular Rise of the Resistance attraction wouldn’t open until December. Between December 2019 and March 2020, Rise of the Resistance was a huge draw as Disney attempted to figure out how to operate the attraction. Near-constant operational changes in late 2019 into 2020 led to confusion for the average guest, but Studios was starting to hit its stride just as the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the parks in Spring 2020.

Now, Disney’s Hollywood Studios is popular but still feels ready for expansion. Nothing has been announced for Disney’s Hollywood Studios, so we might see a few years of status quo before new offerings at other theme parks cannibalize attendance and force Disney to continue to invest in the park.

Journey of Water – Inspired by Moana and the rest of World Celebration are expected to open later this year, but likely not with enough time to create a meaningful impact on attendance. Longer seasonal festivals will either help or create apathy among guests, which remains to be seen. EPCOT is within striking distance of Disney’s Hollywood Studios, but we don’t expect a convincing takeover of attendance figures in 2023.

A premature demolition of Primeval Whirl and a yet-to-be-committed-to retheme of DinoLand USA into a Moana and Zootopia-themed area puts the park in a bad place. It had the slowest year-over-year growth and there is nothing to get excited about at a theme park that just had an unremarkable 25th Anniversary.

In 2023, we expect that Disney’s Animal Kingdom will be surpassed by Disney California Adventure, making Animal Kingdom the least-visited Disney theme park in the United States. Unfortunately, a theme park that has so much to offer simply hasn’t seen notable investment since Spring 2017.

The new normal?

2022 marked the first year at Walt Disney World that wasn’t significantly impacted by COVID-19. International travel was impacted, which can explain away some of the numbers at Walt Disney World, but that should be fully remedied this year. The question is: what is the new normal?

In short, Disney seemingly delivered on the idea of controlling attendance while maintaining profits. In 2022, Walt Disney World operated at about 80% of its 2019 attendance figures. Even if we add back international, Disney might not get back to 2019 levels and that might be a good thing.

Late 2019 and early 2020 were very crowded at Disney World. The experience was bursting at the seams and Disney simply wasn’t expanding enough to keep pace with demand. The fact that Disney is even considering a “Beyond Big Thunder Mountain” project seems to indicate that they understand that they not only need to invest in parks that need the help (Animal Kingdom) but that they need to keep pace with demand at others.

Looking forward, the looming threat of recession and a “moderation” of attendance at Walt Disney World could make the raw numbers portion of the 2023 report interesting, but we don’t expect a huge shakeup in what you see above. Over the next 5 years, the Central Florida theme park landscape will likely undergo a huge shift when Epic Universe opens and forces Disney to respond or continue to watch its market share slide.

As always, keep checking back with us here at BlogMickey.com as we continue to bring you the latest news, photos, and info from around the Disney Parks!