I mean, I don’t wanna have a semantics debate, but Paris is the tourist destination, and the Eiffel Tour is part of the itinerary. Los Angeles is the tourist destination; the Studio Tour (USH) is a part of the itinerary.
Orlando is not a tourist destination; Walt Disney World is. Anaheim is not a tourist destination; Disneyland is. That’s the difference. People are visiting specifically for the parks.
It’s not splitting hairs, for the reasons I stated above. I never denied USH gets a lot of tourists, and that many of them travel a long way to go. My point is about scope, and you kinda proved my point when you said the park would love to become a destination that requires more than two days at the absolute max — it would love to become a tourist destination in and of itself. It’s not there yet. It might not ever be.
Moving this to here so that way the USH general talk doesn't dillute Wicked's--but I think the answer is complicated.
USH by and large now, is predomimently a tourist park. Always has been, but I think my argument is that there was a time where USH stroke a balancing act between being both a tourist park, and a locals park. The key, was in how USH intermixed that of nightlife entertainment and theme park entertainment, alongside the investments to evolve the park further.
And while we had losses like the Gibson/Universal to accomodate that of USH's growth and evolution, we had nightlife with the like of Infusion and of the support from seasonal content that varied from Grinchmas predomimently and HHN (ontop of Lunar New Year). But as we reduced our scope of entertainment, and reduced the scope of nightlife to be just the AMC, we lost what is the local attention in the favorance of appealing towards that of tourists appeal.
The only way we'll see growth and change, is when they do the hotel. Because from that point onward, the USH Hotel will force Universal to compensate and have their hand in bringing back nightlife and nightttime entertainment to allow hotel guests options beyond the park itself. I kind of call it a Schrodinger's Tourist Destination in a way, that won't be settled until then.
And we are starting to slowly get back to theme park entertainment of seasonal offerings to be increased. With Fan Fest Nights, it finally bridges a gap that fills a good pocket of time that has been usually left empty (as most of their attractions either open in February-April or June-July). But they still need more to compensate, especially for the loss of daily entertainment with the removal of Animal Actors and Special Effects Stage to make way for Fast.
I'm hoping when we get to USH's next project, that somewhere in the plan is a move to get a daily entertainment offering back to form. Because that is genuinely one of the biggest holes we will have after Fast and after the hotel.