Attendance dipped at Universal Orlando and Universal Studios Hollywood late in 2024, parent company Comcast reported today.
While attendance and revenue were down during the final three months of the year compared with the same period in 2023, revenue was up at Universal's international theme parks during the period, the company reported. The increases at Universal Studios Japan and Universal Studios Beijing helped push overall revenue at NBCUniversal's Theme Parks segment up 0.1% for the quarter, to US$2.374 billion. (Universal Studios Singapore is owned and operated under license by Genting Singapore.)
However, costs were up for the quarter at Universal's parks, with the $35 million of the $36 million increase attributable to pre-opening costs for the upcoming Epic Universe theme park at the Universal Orlando Resort. Overall, Adjusted EBITDA in the fourth quarter of 2024 was $838 million, down 3.9% from the same period in 2023.
For the full year, Universal's theme parks recorded $8.617 billion in revenue in 2024, down 3.69% from 2023. Costs were up 1.2%, contributing to a 11.9% drop in Adjusted EBITDA, to $2.949 billion.
The Epic Universe theme park will open May 22 on the new south campus at the Universal Orlando Resort. Universal this month opened the new Stella Nova Resort hotel on the Epic Universe property.
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The past 2 weeks have been unusually cold in Central Florida (the opening Sunday of the Arts festival was 40 degrees and raining with delightfully sparse attendance) and during the holidays half the state was dealing with the aftermath of 2 major hurricanes…I would not agree with the no major operational interruptions assessment.. I have no idea of the passholder numbers in Florida (judging from the long lines at the passholder magnet giveaway this weekend it does not appear to be insignificant) and would imagine some of the decline is related to passholder attendance. It would be interesting to know the Universal passholder numbers this year compared to last as I’m sure many are holding off until Epic opens to renew.
And if anyone thinks passholders don’t spend in the parks the’ve never been to an Epcot festival on the weekends.
One possibility is families are putting off going to Universal due to Epic Universe opening this Summer. Luckily, my happiness is not directly proportional to Universal's revenue...
I said it before and I'll say it again... We went in September and I gave them a lot of money. If they didn't invest it wisely, not my fault! ;)
And don't forget - many liberals like me will not spend my monies the Florida with the clown in charge.
Yes it is a huge factor. We have not been back in several years.
@Brian - Florida is going to be reliably red for the foreseeable future, and you're going to need a rehab session at Disney World when your TDS kicks back in, so the next four years are going to be rough. Hopefully you won't need an intervention at a Six Flags park to help you see the futility of your position. ;)
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I don't think a decline was that unexpected, but it's a bit surprising to see how big of a drop-off this is (a 3.69% decline in revenue is pretty significant given no major operational interruptions). I'm sure Epic has contributed some to this, but I wonder if this might be an overall bigger trend within the industry (some of the shortest waits in years have been reported over at WDW over the past 2 weeks and lines over the holiday period were not as onerous as they have been). It will be interesting to see what Disney reports for 4Q24, and whether that is consistent with Universal's results. If they are painting a consistent picture, could we be seeing some lean years on the horizon even with the debut of Epic Universe less than 5 months away? Can Epic reverse the trend and if it can, will it also impact WDW? It doesn't look like we'll see a repeat of 2008, but there could be some powerful financial forces impacting a lot of different industries, including travel and tourism.