SeaWorld worst performing park in North America

Among top theme parks in North America, SeaWorld San Diego is the only one that saw its attendance fall last year, underscoring the park’s still continuing struggles to rebuild visitation.

The San Diego park’s attendance decline — 7 percent — is even more stunning during a year in which the overall 5.9 percent growth among the top 20 North America parks was nearly three times what it was in 2014.

SeaWorld San Diego’s sister park in Orlando, while experiencing a much more modest gain of 2 percent last year, still showed a significant turnaround from a year ago, when its 2014 attendance fell 8 percent.

“Last year we said everything was looking good in the Americas and poised for moderate growth — but 2015 blew the roof off moderate,” said Brian Sands, a vice president with the consulting firm Aecom, which teamed with the nonprofit Themed Entertainment Association to produce the annual attendance report.

“Over the last couple years, the aggregate increase of the 20 top performing theme parks in North America was between 2 percent and 3.5 percent — good, steady, moderate growth. But it positively leapt beyond that in 2015 to an impressive 5.9 percent.”

Not surprisingly, Universal Studios and Disney parks were star performers, especially so Universal’s Orlando park, which saw a 16 percent jump in attendance, thanks to the continued popularity of its Harry Potter attraction. The Wizarding World of Harry Potter debuted earlier this year at Universal Studios Hollywood, which is likely to experience a similar bump in visitation.

Attendance declines at SeaWorld hardly come as a surprise as its parent company has struggled to rebuild the brand amid years of harsh attacks from animal rights groups critical of its treatment of killer whales. In a move to spark a turnaround, SeaWorld Entertainment earlier this year said it would stop all breeding of orcas at its three marine parks and phase out its signature Shamu shows.

Even with the significant changes coming to SeaWorld, CEO Joel Manby has acknowledged it will take some time to reverse the setbacks the parks suffered following the 2013 release of the critical documentary, “Blackfish.”

Theme park expert Robert Niles believes SeaWorld’s continued attendance malaise has less to do with animal care issues and more to do with a lack of exciting new attractions that its rivals are regularly debuting.

“Disney had the 60th anniversary celebration, Universal Hollywood had “The Simpsons”-themed Springfield (attraction), Magic Mountain had Twisted Colossus, and Knott’s Berry Farm Voyage to the Iron Reef,” said Niles, editor of Theme Park Insider.

“SeaWorld has been spinning its wheels for years, and all anyone there talks about are the ethics of animal care. Theme park fans don’t care about the ethics of animal care. They want to talk about, is this fun, and SeaWorld hasn’t been promoting a message of ‘this is fun’ for some time.”

Plans had been in the works for a $100 million enlargement of the orca habitat at SeaWorld San Diego as part of a new attraction, but the project was abandoned after the company decided to end orca breeding. SeaWorld Orlando is preparing to debut its Mako roller coaster next month, and Manby has indicated that a more thrill-oriented attraction could be coming to San Diego in 2018. He’s also pushing for development of resort hotels within the parks to boost spending and visitation.

While the San Diego park is still seeing attendance declines, last year’s drop wasn’t as sharp as the 12 percent slide Aecom reported for 2014.

Because some publicly traded theme-park companies do not release attendance figures for individual properties, the report relies in part on public filings and published reports, in combination with a model that takes into account weather, competition, economic conditions and reinvestment in parks.

Attendance figures, though, are available for SeaWorld San Diego because it occupies city-owned land and must report attendance as a requirement of its lease with the city. For 2015, SeaWorld reported annual attendance of 3,613,631, a drop of 4 percent compared to 2014. AECOM and Themed Entertainment Associated show a 2015 attendance of 3,528,000, or a 7 percent decline.

Like North America, theme park growth worldwide was relatively robust. Global theme park attendance in 2015 was due in large part to strong performance among the major Asian and U.S. operators, including OCT Parks China, Chimelong, Fantawild, SongCheng, Disney and Universal, the report showed. Growth among Asian parks — 7 percent — was only slightly higher than those in North America.

lori.weisberg@sduniontribune.com (619) 293-2251 Twitter: @loriweisberg