Asia's growing middle class fuels theme park boom

Katie Hunt BBC News 09/21/2011 23:42

Mickey Mouse, Hello Kitty and Lego bricks will all find new homes in Asia over the next few years as the disposable incomes of the region's newly affluent fuel a boom in theme park construction.

Disney has broken ground on a $3.6bn (£2.3bn) outpost in Shanghai; Legoland plans to open a park in Johor, Malaysia, next year; and Sanrio will open a theme park dedicated to the cute white cat with no mouth in eastern China in 2014.

Meanwhile, Hong Kong's two theme parks are in the throes of a $1bn expansion to keep up with the competition.

And that's just the big names. A rash of smaller, quirkier theme parks have sprouted up, including ones in China dedicated to the smartphone app Angry Birds and the online game World of Warcraft.

"Asia's large populations are now moving up into the bottom rungs of the middle classes," says Chris Yoshii, global director for economics at Aecom, a consultancy that specialises in the industry.

"There's been a tremendous increase in discretionary spending on things like travel, which theme parks are part of," he says.

The industry expansion comes at the right time for theme park builders and investors as attendance is dwindling in Europe and the US.

Theme park visits last year were up 1.9% according to figures from Aecom, but in Asia that figure was 7.3%.

And according to Pricewaterhouse Coopers, the region's market will be worth nearly $8.5bn by 2012, up from $6.4bn in 2007.

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