Shanghai, Wednesday, 3 September 2025.
On Wednesday Merlin Entertainments opened its first full-scale Legoland Resort in mainland China, a 318,000 m² resort—Merlin’s largest Legoland ever—featuring over 75 attractions, a 250-room hotel and millions of Lego bricks. The most striking detail: the resort positions a major international IP-driven competitor immediately adjacent to an already resilient Shanghai Disneyland operation, intensifying direct rivalry for family visits, hotel nights and F&B spend. For retail and park operators, the immediate implications are clear: added seasonal capacity and new demand vectors will pressure dynamic pricing, merchandising assortments and localised licensing deals; queueing and guest-flow management will need recalibration as attendance patterns shift; and third-party travel channels may re-bundle experiences to capture family itineraries. Monitoring near-term attendance elasticity, retail conversion rates and hotel occupancy trends will signal whether Legoland siphons incremental market volume or redivides existing demand—critical intelligence for pricing, inventory and partnership strategies in Greater China.