The Future of PortAventura

[Nico]

As we all know, competing with your own market share is a solid idea.

i know UK is next up. Would be interesting as it would compete with PA,,

 

[havaska]

The population of Europe is around 750,000,000, more than double the USA’s so there’s definitely room for more than one park and market space.

 

[UniversalRBLX]

What if one is the "big resort" and the other is some sort of new "fusion Universal CityWalk" concept that combines Universal Kids, HHN Unleashed, and whatever other concepts Universal has in the works?

I can't imagine building 2 large-scale resorts at the same time in close proximity.

 

[havaska]

What if one is the "big resort" and the other is some sort of new "fusion Universal CityWalk" concept that combines Universal Kids, HHN Unleashed, and whatever other concepts Universal has in the works?

I can't imagine building 2 large-scale resorts at the same time in close proximity.

To me this seems to be the most likely outcome.

 

[PerceptiveCoot]

They’re far enough away they wouldn’t compete with each other and would offer different experiences.

It’s like saying Legoland Windsor competes with Legoland Bilund.

I'll cop to not knowing the market as well as others, but I feel like there are qualitative differences between those parks' sizes and locations that prevent them from being competitors. A 150 acre local's park in England vs a 30 acre local's park in Denmark are quite different from two 300 acre parks trying to capture an international audience, and presumably seeking 10 million+ visitors each.

 

[Alicia]

The UK park is full size.

 

[UniversalRBLX]

I'll cop to not knowing the market as well as others, but I feel like there are qualitative differences between those parks' sizes and locations that prevent them from being competitors. A 150 acre local's park in England vs a 30 acre local's park in Denmark are quite different from two 300 acre parks trying to capture an international audience, and presumably seeking 10 million+ visitors each.

+ resort hotels, that's the true money maker.

 

[PerceptiveCoot]

The UK park is full size.

 

[Alicia]

View attachment 20210

Just repeating/confirming what others have already said.

 

[UER]

And here we go again, in the eternal loop of talking about the UK park in the Portaventura post instead of its own post

 

[GA-MBIT]

And here we go again, in the eternal loop of talking about the UK park in the Portaventura post instead of its own post

 

[tommyhawkins]

Two weeks from Xmas now, this forum was assured there would be an Universal Portaventura announcement imminently...what's happening?

 

[UER]

Two weeks from Xmas now, this forum was assured there would be an Universal Portaventura announcement imminently...what's happening?

To be fair, even if it was other user who said it, he said that something was happening mid november, and it did with the visit of some Universal executives in a day on which the park was closed in the middle of the week for aparently no reason, but he never said anything about the announcement, that may come tomorrow, may come at the start of next year, its anybody's guess

 

[Chessy]

Is Portaventura the dominant park in Spain or more regionally focused?

 

[UER]

Is Portaventura the dominant park in Spain or more regionally focused?

Not just in Spain, is one of the most visited parks in Europe

Throwing random data, last year it had 85% more visitors than the most visited park in the UK(Alton Towers)

 

[Mad Dog]

Check your sources again, it is happening.
We have the information, we have the proof... It's not our fault y'all can't even pay attention to something that's outside the USA.

The announcement will be here well before Mariah Carey's yearly defrosting. Mark my words.

PS: The resort is being purchased by Universal & some good friends of theirs. I don't know where the Merlin thing came from and at this point I'm too tired to even ask.

Above posted Oct. 12.....Just a reminder....Waiting

 

[Chessy]

Not just in Spain, is one of the most visited parks in Europe

Throwing random data, last year it had 85% more visitors than the most visited park in the UK(Alton Towers)

Yeah AT suffers from terribly short hours due to its location. It was a country estate before branching out to a theme park.

 

[havaska]

Not just in Spain, is one of the most visited parks in Europe

Throwing random data, last year it had 85% more visitors than the most visited park in the UK(Alton Towers)

85% more visitors is very far out.

Port Aventura had 3.8 million visitors. Alton Towers had 2.3 million.

Alton Towers isn’t the most visited park in the UK and hasn’t been for some years - it’s Legoland with 2.4 million.

Source: Top 20 most visited theme parks in Europe in 2022 | News | ThemeParks-EU.com

 

[UniversalRBLX]

Not just in Spain, is one of the most visited parks in Europe

Throwing random data, last year it had 85% more visitors than the most visited park in the UK(Alton Towers)

Math is wrong (should be 63% for 2022 data), but the % is pretty misleading as we're only talking a difference of 1.5M... minor for what Universal wants. They want to compete with Disneyland Paris at the 9-10 million range.

The UK overall has more parks over the 1.5M+ attendance level than Spain's only 2 (Aventura & Parque Warner)... and that's with significant closures in the winter for the UK parks.

 

[Nico]

Just a reminder this is the PA thread.

I know the comparisons/connections are hard to distinguish in this larger conversation at times. If it becomes too prohibitive to the natural flow of conversation, we can consider a general Universal in Europe thread instead.

Just a reminder of this. Generally, we’d have a more general thread and then make individual ones based on confirmed announcements. We didn’t do that this time because that was the desire of the posters in this thread.

Also, @UER isn’t the person who was quoted with a timeframe promise. So let’s not use another poster’s words against them.