Impacts of COVID-related capacity constraints on theme park attendance: evidence from Magic Kingdom wait times

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the impacts of COVID-related capacity constraints on attendance at the Magic Kingdom theme park. Results – based on analysis of about 325,000 attraction wait times recorded between 2014 and 2020 – show that operating at 25% of the park’s capacity would lead to a 54.1-percent reduction in estimated annual attendance, whereas a constraint of 50-percent capacity would lower annual attendance by 10.6%. COVID-related capacity constraints will likely decrease the revenue generated by theme parks and reduce visitation in regions where major theme parks are located.

KEYWORDS:

• COVID-19
• theme parks
• Magic Kingdom
• wait times

JEL CLASSIFICATION:

• J28
• L82
• L83

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

¹ The Disney World employment figure of 75,000 workers is from the ‘Disney Employee Experience’ fact sheet.

² Most years, there are numerous media accounts reporting that the Magic Kingdom reached its capacity limit on New Year’s Eve.

³ 2014 to 2018 annual theme park attendance reports, published by Themed Entertainment Association, show an average of 20.3 million visitors per year to Magic Kingdom.

⁴ The estimated attendance figure for New Year’s Eve, which was oversampled with 1,808 observations in the data set, does not use a 5-day moving average.

⁵ The estimated attendance on New Year’s Eve is 102,135 guests.