The Future of European Theme Parks | Disney vs Universal

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[happymaskedguy]

A proper Universal Studios in Europe would be SO helpful for people like me who desperately want to attend HHN every year, but can’t afford it.

[OxtonSWA]

Hoping Universal do take over Portaventura because I know people who, like myself, won`t set foot in the place again until the current management`s obvious strategy of purposing slowing down operations to make the queues bigger so more people buy Express tickets which they sell in unlimited numbers. The place is coming a total rip off.

[shadeblackwolf]

I do think Efteling is actual competition. Qualitatively. It just needs to keep going how it is, and it will overtake the stagnant disney

[ageoflove]

The two best European themeparks, and perhaps even the two best in the world are completely independently owned : The Efteling and Europapark. The first is owned by a very old foundation based on strict guidelines and the second one is a traditional family business, run and owned by the Mack family who even produce their own rides. Both these parks offer a much better experience than Disneyland: more rides, no additional manipulative cash grabs with dodgy fast pass systems and you can even bring your own food and drinks if you like. Both parks have great attendance numbers, make healthy profits and invest most of that straight back in to their parks and frequently add new innovative rides.

Its just great to see what can be done when people actually care and make an effort instead of just a faceless corporation only interested in growth numbers for their shareholders. The Efteling and Europapark show that a privately owned and smaller operation that keeps a close eye on things is the way forward for quality themeparks. They make ridiculously clear what a complete rip off Disney and potentially Universal have become. You just cant argue with price and quality, no matter how many big movie IP's you trow in there.

[liamcollinson]

I am all for universal to hopefully return to Europe particularly portaventura i would like them to keep the park how it is but add a 3rd gate with the wizarding world, Jurassic park, Nintendo ect a hhh event would also be cool. It would be nice to have a universal park that isn't like 4000 miles away

[JörgBauch]

Universal has no theme park in Europe, sadly. I hope for a Universal Themepark in Germany. I think when 2 Amusement Park Companies are competing Together, its not a war. We have war in The Ukraine.

[ottot]

Wow there is a lot of wrong with you analytics.
First of all DLP doesn't do well. There is a reason the previous owners (investment firms) where ready to close to failing resort. Disney tries to prep up the numbers as most of the company will be for sale as clearly can be seen from everything Bob Iger is doing. Their movies flop, Disney+ is loosing money and customers every month, their bought ip's like Star Wars, Muppets, Marvel and Pixar are all dead due to a lack of creativity in the Disney Corp. There is a reason DLP wasn't mentioned at all during D23 or the latest quarterly meetings. Sure the visitor numbers are impressive at DLP but these parks cost a ton more to run and maintain than an Europapark or Efteling and the European guest just isn't ready to spent up to 20.000$ for a week of vacation in a theme park resort like the US customers did (but they also stop coming). Non of the expansions for DLP are being build and they won't be in the foreseeable future as the company has no money. A cheap re-theming is the best you can expect.
All changes in the other parks can be seen in China (only 30% owned by the Disney Corp) and Japan (100% owned by the Oriental Land company) so they don't cost Disney anything. Changes in WDW/DL are sponsored or very minor as visitor numbers dwindle down steadily.

Universal is on a role but Universal is also very smart. They know Europeans can't support (financially) a fully packed theme park in Europe (as much I would like to) so that will never come to Europe.
The name change is easily explained as Universal is building a small kids focused park in Texas. It's a smart concept where parents will have leisure time and kids will meet all their favorite characters like Minions, Shrek, Puss in Boots and other ip's Universal has or is working with in a nicely themed park with cheap attractions. It doing what their headliner parks don't and that is catering to the family with your children preparing them to come to the big parks in the future. It is a page from the Merlin Entertainment corp who has LegoLand, Pepa Pig and London Dungeons to name a few and this company is bigger than Disney and Universal.
Talking about London Dungeon, another expansion is a year long Halloween event in Las Vegas. Universal is famous for their HHN events and transporting that to a permanent location is a smart spread of their portfolio.
Both of these concept I could is in the future in Europe and the rest of the world as they are small experiences but that is all we get for the foreseeable decade.

[ShotGreen]

If Universal is set to buy an existing park, the best and most probable option is PortAventura by far. The resort maintain lots of remnants of their previous Universal management (Woody is still the icon of the park, alongside other famous Universal cartoons) and when Universal managed the park, it resembled IOA. The resort has 5 amazingly good hotels, good connections via train/high velocity train (even from Paris), car and airplane (much better than many of the options mentioned), and also Spain has a better climate than most of Northern Europe. However, the resort needs a major and urgent overhaul, specially on the operations, and they would need to spend a lot of money to put the park in a "Universal" status, but overall I think that would be a smart move from Universal.

And if Universal is set to build from scratch, France would a good option as well, just like Belgium, Netherlands or Germany. But the soil in Europe is the most expensive and most of it is exploited or owned by someone, and it might be a nightmare to build, so I think that's not a good option. Anyways, good video and review of all the things that are going on at the moment!! Keep it up

[TheRagdollrejects]

I don’t see DLP struggling if Universal is in Spain. Paris is insanely easy to get to in Northern Europe. Spain is a nightmare unless you fly. DLP is about a 9 hour drive from the north of the U.K. which is about as far as you’d want to. Spain is 21 hours so you’d have to fly. In fact for most of Northern Europe you’d have to travel past Disneyland to get there… might be a one off trip for a lot of families.

[thomasmitchell]

Interesting video. Whilst I doubt DLP will get a 15 billion investment I do agree that if Universal returns to Europe Disney would have to invest. Could you imagine if Universal added Super Nintendo World to Port Aventura

[NWSnort]

Good thing I don't give a hoot about both off em.
Proud season ticket holder of The Efteling here, beats them every time for me.

[samuraistretch]

I think I would prefer Universal to set up shop in the UK. However, a Spanish resort becomes an actual holiday destination. A theme park, water park, hotels, city walk area means you could spend a good week there, whereas a UK resort would likely be a one night kind of thing.

[klundert]

I think Universal can better do a takeover of the themepark toverland in the Netherlands.
The founder of toverland has always says that hé loves Universal and you can see the inspiration from ioa in his park.
it will be a great location in western europe and already have great coasters.
And they can start a little eurowar with parks like efteling and phantasialand almost as your neighbours.

[LeeleeSTAR]

I really hope the $15bn figure is true and if so it's not wasted. Also that any projects happen a lot quicker than the lake and frozen area.

[history_leisure]

If Dineyland Forward gets off the ground, Paris and California are probably going to be Disney's main focus. Disney World will need something after the Animal Kingdom overhaul either with new Pavilions at EPCOT (Play, Showplace replacement/UK expansion, attractions in Germany and Japan, either expand Italy or put Greece next to it, Brazil seems to come and go to be between Italy and Germany)

[patrickkiewiet]

I hope they will be in Europe, but I think „competing” with DLP won’t happen soon. Spain is too far away for a lot of Europeans, I also think the general public in Europe doesn’t care about Universal as much as Disney. (Just because people don’t know what ip’s Universal actually owns)

I can’t wait to see what it develops into though!

[birdflox]

I kinda hope that if Universal ever does end up expanding into Europe, they just built their own new park at this point. A lot of their strength comes from their IPs and how well they implement them, what would they do with Port Aventura? Throw on some cheap Nintendo or Harry Potter overlays onto pre-existing rides?

[Person-wziy]

I would love Universal to build a park here in the UK!

[martijnschils]

america: were wanna see the war between the two companys
europe: we dont want PortAventura WORLD to change

[Zeeland_Mapping]

I still think Efteling would remain my favorite, followed by Europa Park, Phantasialand, the Universal par and on number 5 Disney Land Paris