Los Angeles, CA, May 17, 2018—USHR//

The annual Theme Index, produced jointly by the Themed Entertainment Association and engineering/consulting firm AECOM, showed Universal Studios Hollywood’s attendance rise 12% to an attendance of 9,056,000 in 2017, compared with 8,086,000 in 2016. This placed it 15th in the world among all parks and 9th among North American parks, the same ranking as last year.

Universal’s other American parks enjoyed attendance increases: Islands of Adventure rose 2% to 9,549,000 guests, just beating out Universal Studios Hollywood for 14th place, and Universal Studios Florida also rose 2%, with attendance totalling 10,198,000 at the park for a ranking of 10 worldwide. One can most certainly not ignore the Resort’s new water park, though. Volcano Bay drew 1,500,000 visitors in its first year of operation (note that it opened on May 25 of 2017). Universal Orlando’s total attendance across its three parks for 2017 was 21,247,000.

It is important to note, however, that Universal Studios Florida was in fact not the most popular Universal Parks & Resorts property. That honor went to Universal Studios Japan, the fourth most visited park in the world. With 14,935,000 visitors, USJ had a 3% increase from 2016. Universal Studios Singapore rounded out the top 25 with 4,220,000 visitors, a 2.9% increase.

In total, Universal saw a 4.4% attendance growth across all of its properties with 49,458,000 visitors, ranking it third among all operators. Universal’s main rival, Walt Disney Attractions, still took first place with a massive 150,014,000 visitors. While Universal and Disney do not officially provide attendance figures, TEA & AECOM use a “variety of sources, including statistics furnished directly by the operators, historical numbers, financial reports, the investment banking community, local tourism organizations, and professional estimates where necessary” to determine attendance figures. You can read the report for yourself at TEA’s website.