World’s Most Visited Theme Parks in 2018

On the tail end of the highly-anticipated opening of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, the new Star Wars

-themed park in Disneyland, it seems pretty timely to discuss the world’s most popular theme parks from 2018.

According to a new report from The Economics Practice at AECOM and Themed Entertainment Association, theme park attendance grew by roughly 4 percent worldwide in 2018.

The report, 2018 TEA/AECOM Theme Index and Museum Index

, breaks down the most-visited parks around the world and their growing, or declining, attendance. According to the report, theme-park visitation had a record year, with waterpark attendance rising at 2.5 percent globally and 5.8 percent nationally. Museums were in the mix, too, but with relatively flat visitation data.

One highlight from the report: For the first time, half a billion visitors worldwide went to a major theme or amusement park — totaling about 7 percent of the world’s population.

One contributing factor for the rise in park visitation could be the addition of a second gate at most parks, granting greater security and more efficient movement into the park. More likely, unique attractions and creative, blockbuster intellectual property are the credit for the increase in attention.

Top of the list, Disney welcomed more than 157 million visitors to its parks around the world in 2018. The most visited of all Disney parks was Disney World’s Magic Kingdom in Florida. It’s not the first of the Disney park franchise, but definitely the largest in the country.

Asian Disney parks also had a record year, with parks in Tokyo, Hong Kong and new kid on the block Shanghai Disneyland topping the list. Behind Asia’s Disney parks, OCT, Fantawild and Chimelong also earned top billing.

Fantawild theme park in Asia. Photo: Phper | Dreamstime.com

Check out the top 5 parks from 2018:

No. 1: Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World Resort: The Florida park gained 2 percent attendance over 2017, with 20,859,000 visitors in 2018.

No. 2: Disneyland Park at Disneyland Resort: The first of the Disney Parks, located in Anaheim, California, gained a 2 percent increase over 2017, with 18,666,000 guests in 2018.

No. 3: Tokyo Disneyland at Tokyo Disney Resort: The park in Tokyo saw a staggering 7.9 percent visitation increase from 2017, with 17,907,000 visitors in 2018.

No. 4: Tokyo DisneySea at Tokyo Disney Resort: It saw more than 8 percent attendance increase in 2018, with 14,651,000 guests.

No. 5: Universal Studios Japan: Located in Osaka, this beat out the U.S. Universal Studios with 14,300,000 guests in 2018, actually a 4 percent decrease from 2017.

Read the full report here.