The Themed Entertainment Association (TEA) is a international non-profitwho releases a free annual report about the leisure and travel sectors including the theme park industry. The 2024 TEA Global Experience Index™ is out and the results show that Asia is a growing theme park powerhouse with 12 of the top 25 theme parks by attendance. It’s not uncommon for enthusiasts to travel internationally these days, but most seem to travel to Europe, not Asia. Most of the Asian parks in the top 10 are in Japan including #3 Universal Studios Japan, #4 Tokyo Disneyland and #7 Tokyo DisneySea, but you’ll also find several parks in China and two in South Korea. However, this report shows that if you’ve never visited a park in Asia you’re missing almost half of the top 25 parks in the world.

Top 25 theme parks worldwide

1. Magic Kingdom (Walt Disney World, Florida, USA) 17.8 million
2. Disneyland Park (Disneyland Resort, California, USA) 17.3 million
3. Universal Studios Japan (Osaka, Japan) 16 million
4. Tokyo Disneyland (Tokyo Disney Resort, Japan) 15.1 million
5. Shanghai Disneyland (Shanghai, China)14.7 million
6. Chimelong Ocean Kingdom (Hengqin, China) 12.6 million
7. Tokyo DisneySea (Tokyo Disney Resort, Japan) 12.6 million
8. EPCOT (Walt Disney World, Florida, USA) 12.1 million
9. Disney’s Hollywood Studios (Walt Disney World, Florida, USA) 10.3 million
10. Disneyland Paris (Paris, France) 10.2 million
11. Disney California Adventure (Disneyland Resort, California, USA) 10 million
12. Universal Studios Beijing (Beijing, China) 9.7 million
13. Universal Studios Florida (Universal Orlando Resort, Florida, USA) 9.5 million
14. Universal’s Islands of Adventure (Universal Orlando Resort, Florida, USA) 9.45 million
15. Disney’s Animal Kingdom (Walt Disney World, Florida, USA) 8.8 million
16. Universal Studios Hollywood (Hollywood, California, USA) 8.7 million
17. Hong Kong Disneyland (Hong Kong) 7.9 million
18. Europa-Park (Rust, Germany) 6.2 million
19. Efteling (Kaatsheuvel, Netherlands) 5.6 million
20. (TIE) Walt Disney Studios Park (Disneyland Paris, France) 5.6 million
21. (TIE) Everland (Yongin, South Korea) 5.6 million
22. China Dinosaurs Park (Changzhou, China) 5.4 million
23. Lotte World Adventure (Seoul, South Korea) 5.3 million
24. Shanghai Haichang Ocean Park (Shanghai, China) 4.7 million
25. Chimelong Spaceship (Hengqin, China) 4.6 million

TEA has produced and published the report and made it available as a free resource since 2006 and you can read the 2024 report as well as past reports on their website totally free. It’s filled with great information The report is compiled independently from the parks (as most don’t report per park attendance data) in collaboration with research partners Entertainment + Culture Advisors (ECA) and The Park Database (TPDB). The TEA Global Experience Index™ compiles data from a mix of sources, including operator data, tourism statistics, financial filings, and professional estimates to create its attendance rankings. The report also details the top water parks and museums internationally.

It is also worth noting that there are 9 US based parks in the top 25 with 6 based in the Orlando area. All are owned by either Disney or Universal with Epic Universe expected to join the top 25 and make it 10 and 7 respectively next year. Rounding out the top 20 in North America are Knott’s Berry Farm at #10 along with SeaWorld Orlando/San Diego, Busch Gardens Tampa, Cedar Point, Kings Island, Six Flags Magic Mountain, Canada’s Wonderland, Dollywood, Six Flags Great America and Hershey Park. Although Disney and Universal dominate the top 10, it’s great and healthy to see a mix of companies in the next tier.

It’s important to keep in mind that these are attendance figures and have nothing to do with park quality or ride quality. A park could be the only option in a highly populated area and do quite well as opposed to areas with more competition. They also don’t have anything to do with profitability, but one could assume more attendance certainly wouldn’t be a negative unless the park had capacity issues. However, these results do show the now global nature of the industry and the emergence of Asia over the European market. With parks like Six Flags Qiddiya City coming online later this year we may even see a park from the Middle East on this list shortly. Speaking from experience, visiting a theme park as part of an international trip is a wonderful experience and it appears in the future there will be even more high quality options to choose from. it’s fun to get those rare credits that make your friends jealous and potentially experience a different culture at the same time.