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Chimelong’s Attendance Surge: Retail Signals from Zhuhai’s Theme-Park Boom

Chimelong’s Attendance Surge: Retail Signals from Zhuhai’s Theme-Park Boom

2025-11-18 parks

Zhuhai, Tuesday, 18 November 2025.
Statista placed Chimelong Ocean Kingdom among the world’s top-attended parks in 2024, underscoring a clear shift: domestic Chinese destination parks now drive massive footfall that can recalibrate regional retail and F&B planning. For retail executives, the most intriguing fact is Chimelong’s 12.63 million visitors — demand comparable with established global brands — signalling strong local penetration and resort-duration stays in the Greater Bay Area. Expect pressure on international operators to adapt pricing, merchandising and omnichannel strategies, and consider multimodal infrastructure and resort retail formats when allocating capital across Asia‑Pacific pipelines. Operational priorities will include capacity-driven assortment planning, seasonality hedging, and guest-experience diversification tied to marine-themed IP. Regulatory attention on animal welfare and safety may affect attraction programming and related retail product lifecycles. This snapshot offers implications for site selection, partner negotiations and inventory cycles; a follow-up will unpack actionable tactics for merchandising, pricing and partnership models tailored to high-volume Chinese resort environments.

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Chimelong’s Attendance Surge: Retail Signals from Zhuhai’s Theme-Park Boom
Why Magic Kingdom Stayed No.1 in 2024 — What It Means for Park Operators

Why Magic Kingdom Stayed No.1 in 2024 — What It Means for Park Operators

2025-10-30 parks

Orlando, Thursday, 30 October 2025.
The TEA attendance report for 2024, published last Wednesday, confirms Magic Kingdom as the world’s most visited park (about 17.8 million visits), while China’s Chimelong Ocean Kingdom again ranks among the global leaders. For retail and operations teams, the headline isn’t just Disney’s scale but the split in growth models: legacy destination resorts drive multi-day stays and IP-led spend, while high-capacity regional parks compete on price, throughput and local demand. That divergence creates different pressure points — sustained crowding and staffing volatility at major destination parks versus throughput and margin management at regional operators. The most intriguing takeaway: Disney still places 12 parks in the top 25, underscoring platform-level advantages that intensify benchmarking demands. Expect capital-allocation shifts toward capacity upgrades, queue technologies and revenue-mix strategies, and sharper KPI sets for network planning. This snapshot should prompt portfolio re-evaluations and operational pilots focused on crowd-flow, staffing elasticity and ticketing/pricing levers.

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Why Magic Kingdom Stayed No.1 in 2024 — What It Means for Park Operators