2 Parks in Southland See Rise in Visitors

Heavy discounting and a strong appeal to local visitors helped Disneyland and Universal Studios Hollywood boost attendance this year, even as the U.S. theme park industry overall showed a slight decline from 2001, according to a report to be released Monday.

Disneyland’s attendance rose 3% and Universal’s was up 10%, according to estimates from Nashville-based Amusement Business, a weekly trade magazine.

Representatives of both theme parks, which are California’s largest, said the holidays were looking strong and they were expecting to post solid gains next year as well, thanks in part to continued discounting and improvements in international tourism.

But the picture was less rosy at other parks in California. SeaWorld in San Diego, Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia and Legoland in Carlsbad posted declines ranging from 2% to 6%, and attendance at Knott’s Berry Farm in Buena Park essentially was flat.

Meanwhile, Florida’s theme park industry, which is much more dependent on out-of-area visitors, had another grim year, with attendance at the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World falling 5% and Universal Studios in Orlando down 6%.

By contrast, the number of visitors at Universal’s park in Universal City rose to 5.2 million this year, according to Amusement Business, which tracks the 50 most popular amusement parks in the nation.

Much of that growth was due to the company’s “buy a day, get a year” discount program, a promotion that will be back next year, said Jim Yeager, a spokesman for Universal Parks and Resorts, a unit of Vivendi Universal.

Disneyland, which offered discounts during the summer, drew 12.7 million people. But California Adventure, its sister park in Anaheim, continued to struggle, with the number of visitors falling 6% to 4.7 million.

Walt Disney Co., however, is counting on the holidays to draw big crowds at its parks.

“We’ve had a strong holiday performance,” said Leslie Goodman, spokeswoman for Walt Disney Parks and Resorts Worldwide.

Goodman said, however, that it was too soon to predict when a full recovery would occur, given uncertainties in the economy and lingering weakness in international travel.