All of the Disney Parks around the world may be reopened, but the COVID-19 global pandemic continues to have an impact in many ways.
Many restaurants, hotels, and experiences remain closed throughout the parks, and recently, the Walt Disney Company CEO, Bob Chapek, shared that they saw a bigger impact in park attendance from the COVID-19 Delta Variant. And, though it has been over a year since the parks originally closed, we’re just now getting a look at how it impacted attendance levels for the year.
According to The Orange County Register, a report released by the Themed Entertainment Association and AECOM shared that theme park attendance dropped 67% from 2019 to 2020 at the 25 most-visited locations worldwide, including Disneyland Resort, Walt Disney World, and Universal.
Over in California, Disneyland Resort and Universal Studios Hollywood were some of the theme parks that experienced the lengthiest closures, with both closing in March 2020 and not reopening until April 30th and April 16th respectively. And, according to the report, both resorts saw an 80% decline in attendance overall compared to 2019.
For Disneyland Resort, this was a drop from 3.7 million visitors in 2020 to 18.7 million visitors in 2019 at Disneyland Park and a decline from 9.9 million visitors in 2019 to 1.9 million visitors in 2020 at Disney California Adventure. And, Universal Studios Hollywood saw a similar drop from 9.2 million visitors in 2019 to 1.7 million visitors in 2020.
Now, Disney California Adventure did host a limited-ticketed event called A Touch of Disney prior to reopening on April 30th, 2021, however, these attendance numbers were not included in the report.
Over in Disney World, the parks were closed in 2020 for a much shorter period of time (from March to July), though limited park capacity did contribute to a significant drop in attendance numbers compared to 2019.
Magic Kingdom was the park that saw the most visitors for 2020 with 6.9 million total. But, this was still a 67% drop in attendance compared to 2019 (which saw 21 million visitors). The other three theme parks saw declines ranging from 67% to 70%.
Now in 2021, all of these theme parks have been able to reopen, though the global pandemic continues to have an impact in regards to capacity limits, health and safety requirements, and more. But, we’ll have to wait until spring of 2022 to see exactly how attendance levels were impacted this year. And, in the meantime, be sure to stay tuned to AllEars for all of the latest theme park news and updates!
Check out Disney’s approach to increasing theme park capacity HERE!
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Did you go to a theme park in 2020? Let us know in the comments!
The park reservation system put me off. We are not strict planners and prefer to adapt our plans as we go based on weather, closures and our mood. The idea of restricting our ability to park hop is one of the reasons we have not returned to the parks. Now I hear that the reservation system is here to stay. Honestly, I don’t know if we will ever go back. FYI, we used to be annual pass holders.
The reason why there was a drop is obvious. Disney is restricting capacity. Word is they are increasing capacity to 35% in October. Ask Disney what 35% means. They won’t tell you.