Zhuhai, Friday, 24 October 2025.
Chimelong Ocean Kingdom reported notable attendance growth in 2024, rising to roughly 12.6 million visitors and holding sixth place in the global rankings—a reminder that large domestic destination parks can rival established foreign-branded resorts. The most intriguing fact: China’s integrated resort model—heavy spend on marine exhibits, high-throughput attractions and targeted regional marketing—helped a non-Disney/Universal park secure a top global position. For retail and park operators, this signals shifting footfall patterns and growing local discretionary spending that demand rethought capacity planning, dynamic pricing and merch assortments tuned to longer-stay, family and regional travelers. Investors should factor in lower sensitivity to international travel cycles for well-positioned domestic resorts. Competitive responses may include product differentiation, tighter day-part pricing, and expanded F&B and retail bundles tailored to domestic travel flows to capture incremental per-capita spend in second-tier coastal hubs such as Zhuhai/Hengqin.
Attendance lift and global ranking context
Chimelong Ocean Kingdom registered attendance of roughly 12.6 million visitors in 2024, retaining sixth place in TEA/AECOM’s global attendance rankings and signaling a continued post‑pandemic stabilization for large destination parks in China [1]. The 12.6 million figure appears alongside modest year‑on‑year increases across the top global parks, where incremental growth rather than dramatic reshuffling characterized the 2024 rankings [1].
Comparing 2023 and 2024: scale of the surge
Public reporting indicates Chimelong Ocean Kingdom welcomed just over 8 million visitors in 2023, a figure the operator cited as a year‑on‑year increase from 2022; comparing that publicly reported 2023 baseline to the 2024 attendance reported in the global index illustrates the scale of growth for a single year 57.5 [2][1]. [alert! ‘The 2023 “over 8 million” figure is phrased as “over” in the source; the calculation uses the numeric 8.0 million as the explicit number present in that source and the 12.6 million figure from the global index source’]
What the numbers imply about the integrated resort model
The combined evidence — a top‑10 global attendance position in the TEA/AECOM index and operator statements about multi‑park resort performance — supports the assessment that Chimelong’s integrated‑resort approach (marine exhibits, multiple hotels and complementary parks) is driving robust domestic demand that is less sensitive to international travel cycles than single‑park, inbound‑tourist dependent models [1][2][3][GPT].
Operational and investment signals for industry professionals
For park operators and investors, Chimelong’s performance underlines several strategic imperatives: capacity planning for sustained high throughput across marine and coaster attractions; dynamic pricing and day‑part strategies to capture longer‑stay family and regional travel patterns; and merchandising and F&B assortments aligned to higher per‑capita spend linked to resort‑style visits [1][2][3][GPT]. Each of these levers maps to features visible in Chimelong’s resort complex — multiple theme assets, on‑site hotels and marine exhibits — that aggregate guest spend and lengthen stays [3][2].
Regional implications: Zhuhai/Hengqin as a second‑tier coastal hub
Chimelong’s strong attendance reinforces Zhuhai/Hengqin’s emergence as a high‑volume coastal resort cluster: the park’s draw supports local lodging demand and intermodal travel links noted in tourism listings, and it serves as a template for how second‑tier coastal hubs can host globally ranked parks without reliance on foreign brands [3][2][1].
Competitive responses and investor considerations
Competitors and investors should expect a mix of tactical and strategic responses: tighter day‑part pricing and bundled F&B/retail offerings to capture incremental spend; targeted regional marketing to sustain domestic visitation; and selective capital allocation to attraction throughput and marine/exhibit quality to protect market share against integrated‑resort rivals [1][3][GPT].
Data limits and areas requiring verification
Available sources provide a clear attendance datapoint for 2024 and an operator‑quoted 2023 figure, but finer granularity is absent in public summaries: daily and seasonal load patterns, per‑capita spend, and room‑night conversion rates at Chimelong’s hotels are not published in the cited materials and would require operator disclosure or filed financials for validation [1][2][3][alert! ‘Public sources used do not break out nightly occupancy, per‑capita spend or seasonality metrics; those numbers are needed to fully quantify operational impact’].
Bronnen