Benjsh
TS Member
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A very good point also. People in the south don't always remember how much rain we get up north.
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UK Merlin park guest figures through the years
- Thread starter AT86
- Start date
A very good point also. People in the south don't always remember how much rain we get up north.
Matt N
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Mako (SeaWorld Orlando)
That's a good point. I've often heard it said that a fairly significant factor in Swarm's failure could have been how poor 2012's summer weather was; if I'm remembering correctly, 2012 was a horrible summer where it rained loads (even though I was only 9, I certainly remember a lot of rain in summer 2012...), and a bit of reading would suggest that it was quite a poor year for the UK theme park industry all round because of that and numerous other reasons.
If you look at my data, Alton Towers and Chessington also registered fair declines in attendance in 2012 (Alton dropped by over 10%, or nearly 300,000, and Chessington dropped by a good 100,000), and 2012 was even the straw that broke the camel's back to cause the demise of Camelot, so 2012 was a pretty difficult year all round for UK theme parks.
However, weather doesn't explain trends. It could certainly explain anomalies and one-off peaks or troughs, but I don't think sustained trends can really be attributed to the weather. The chance of getting a sustained spell of exceptionally good or exceptionally poor summers for many, many years in a row is surely quite low.
Matt N
TS Member
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- Mako (SeaWorld Orlando)
Disclaimer: This post is quite long; I apologise in advance!
If any of you are interested, I decided to play with the attendance data a little more this evening and answer a couple of questions!
For starters, I'd like to apologise sincerely, because I only just realised that I messed up a couple of the numbers so that they were off by about 20,000... sorry about that. I've corrected the incorrect readings now.
The first thing I decided to ask was...
How would the parks be ranked in terms of average all time attendance?
To answer this question, I applied the statistical measures of mean, median and mode to each theme park's attendance.
The first statistical measure I used was the mean. The mean is a calculated average, which I worked out by adding all of the attendance figures together and dividing them by the number of years each park had listed in the graph. When ranked by mean attendance, the parks stacked up as follows:
The placements were much the same when I used median (the middle value):
Have any of the parks had anomalous years, or outliers, in their history?
To answer this question, I decided to calculate the standard deviation, which is a statistical measure that tells you how much variation there is in your dataset.
I hear you asking "well, how is the standard deviation relevant to outliers?". Well, standard deviation is relevant because the definition of an outlier is any reading that is more than 2 standard deviations away from the mean on either side. With that in mind, I calculated the standard deviation of each park's attendance, and used that to work out the "normal" range of each park's attendance (the range of figures that falls within 2SD of the mean; if the attendance data followed a perfect bell curve/normal distribution, approximately 97.5% of the data would fall within 2SD of the mean). Any figures that fell outside this range were deemed to be outliers, or anomalous years.
Here's how each park fared in this regard...
Alton Towers
Excluding 2020
Mean All Time Attendance: 2,429,688
Standard Deviation: 392,762
Upper Bound of "Normal" Attendance Range: 3,215,212
Lower Bound of "Normal" Attendance Range: 1,644,163
Outliers: 1 (3,312,500 attained in 1994)
Including 2020
Mean All Time Attendance: 2,389,358
Standard Deviation: 458,428
Upper Bound of "Normal" Attendance Range: 3,306,214
Lower Bound of "Normal" Attendance Range: 1,472,503
Outliers: 2 (3,312,500 attained in 1994 and 937,500 attained in 2020)
Chessington World of Adventures
Excluding 2020
Mean All Time Attendance: 1,425,189
Standard Deviation: 259,927
Upper Bound of "Normal" Attendance Range: 1,945,044
Lower Bound of "Normal" Attendance Range: 905,335
Outliers: 1 (875,000 attained in 1987)
Including 2020
Mean All Time Attendance: 1,397,978
Standard Deviation: 301,149
Upper Bound of "Normal" Attendance Range: 2,000,276
Lower Bound of "Normal" Attendance Range: 795,680
Outliers: 1 (500,000 attained in 2020)
Legoland Windsor
Excluding 2020
Mean All Time Attendance: 1,820,652
Standard Deviation: 339,098
Upper Bound of "Normal" Attendance Range: 2,498,898
Lower Bound of "Normal" Attendance Range: 1,142,457
Outliers: 0
Including 2020
Mean All Time Attendance: 1,772,135
Standard Deviation: 408,021
Upper Bound of "Normal" Attendance Range: 2,588,157
Lower Bound of "Normal" Attendance Range: 956,094
Outliers: 1 (656,250 attained in 2020)
Thorpe Park
Excluding 2020
Mean All Time Attendance: 1,396,250
Standard Deviation: 384,292
Upper Bound of "Normal" Attendance Range: 2,164,833
Lower Bound of "Normal" Attendance Range: 627,667
Outliers: 1 (2,187,500 attained in 2010)
Including 2020
Mean All Time Attendance: 1,372,664
Standard Deviation: 405,989
Upper Bound of "Normal" Attendance Range: 2,184,643
Lower Bound of "Normal" Attendance Range: 560,686
Outliers: 2 (2,187,500 attained in 2010 and 500,000 attained in 2020)
It's really interesting to me to see that every single park has had at least one outlier at some point in its history! I knew that every park would have had 2020 as a giant outlier (that one needs no explanation, really...), but surprisingly, every park apart from Legoland had an anomalous year even prior to COVID. In Chessington's case, it was the park's all time low in 1987, while in the case of Alton and Thorpe, it was actually their all time peaks, in 1994 and 2010 respectively, that were outliers compared to the parks' other years attendance-wise.
You're probably wondering how outliers are actually relevant to theme park attendance. In fairness, they're not as relevant to theme park attendance as they would be in, say, a science experiment, but I think they're still important to consider, even though we are talking about theme park attendance rather than the growth of germ cultures in a petri dish or whatever.
In statistical terms, outliers are usually excluded from calculations such as averages and predictive analytics models. They are readings that are said to have a low chance of repeatability under normal circumstances, so my data suggests that the parks' anomalous years (both peaks and troughs) have produced attendance figures that there's a fair chance of the parks never hitting again, under normal circumstances at least. And when you look at the circumstances surrounding the parks' respective anomalous years, that would make some sense; the widespread anomalous low of 2020 was likely caused by COVID-19 and the associated lockdowns and social distancing (which certainly couldn't be referred to as "normal circumstances"), the anomalous Chessington low of 1987 was likely caused by it being the park's opening year and it only having half a season (which is unlikely to be repeated... the park will never have an opening year again, and a half-season is unlikely to be repeated under normal circumstances), and the anomalous Alton Towers and Thorpe Park highs were both likely caused by the opening years of freakishly successful major ride installations (I know Thorpe's was 2010 rather than 2009, but 2009 and 2011's figures were on the cusp of being outliers themselves, and 2009's massive increase was almost definitely stimulated by Saw), which likely wouldn't be considered "normal" circumstances.
I know that theme park attendance is a touch too nuanced for outliers to be set in stone, but I still think it's an interesting point to consider.
Another question I asked was...
Which parks have the most volatile attendance?
In order to answer this question, I once again employed our good friend standard deviation to measure the variability of each park's attendance.
In terms of standard deviation, the parks were ranked as follows:
Excluding 2020
Excluding 2020
This really puts into perspective how much higher the late 2000s and early 2010s were for attendance at Thorpe Park than any other point in its history, as well as how different Thorpe's growth trajectory has been to that of the other 3 parks. In spite of Thorpe having the most years on the graph, it only had one proper peak that it attained fairly late in its life. The park mostly ticked along at a fairly low attendance in its early years, peaking not much above the 1 million mark (quite often a bit below it, in fact; the park had numerous years of 900k or so, and its low is a little below 850k) for 20 years. The 1.5 million threshold was not breached until 2003, 20 years into Thorpe Park's time on the graph, and the peak of 2.1-2.2 million was only ever hit during the 2009-2011 period, with no year before or since coming even remotely close to it.
By comparison, Alton and Chessington both appear to have managed roughly 2 big growth cycles (or perhaps 1.5 in Chessington's case, as a trough never began in the 2nd one before COVID), and they've maintained a fairly high relative attendance throughout their lives on the graph (since 1984 in Alton's case and since 1987 in Chessington's case). Legoland never really had a trough, with that park having managed a fairly consistent, steady upward trajectory since appearing on the graph in 1997.
On a side note, I guess this also proves why you can't really rely on pure numbers on their own; Alton Towers had the highest actual number as its SD, but this was likely caused by its mean attendance being a solid peg higher than that of the other 3 parks, as its SD actually equated to the lowest percentage of mean attendance out of the 4.
The final question I asked was...
Which park fills to capacity the most?
Now I know that this one is based upon slightly more spurious reasoning, but I did think that this could be one question where the 2020 data might come in handy. I thought that the 2020 attendances might provide an interesting insight into this because in 2020, the parks were all open for the same amount of time, and all of them had heavily capped attendance, so hit capacity most of the time.
The way I thought I'd answer this question was by ranking the parks by how much lower their 2020 attendance was than their 2019 attendance (the percentage decrease). The park with the highest percentage decrease should, in theory, be the one that fills to capacity the most.
In terms of percentage decrease, the parks' 2020 attendances were ranked as follows:
The 2020 figures would also imply that Alton Towers has the highest capacity of any of the UK Merlin parks by quite some margin; its 2020 figure was close to 1 million, while the others were more like 500,000 (Chessington and Thorpe were joint lowest at bang on 500k, while Legoland was a little higher and edged closer to 600-700k).
One final thing I should reveal is that I have condensed all of this data into a Google Sheet, which has each park's data and statistics listed alongside a labelled line graph showing all of them together for visual perspective:
From: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1T3bmW5I9gyq6AgqogFJ6xSppi8vRw-y2SWoRZPpfdzg/edit?usp=sharing
If you're wondering why every park in the spreadsheet starts from 1983, with the ones that start later than 1983 having 0 listed as their attendance for the early years, this was because the graph didn't seem to like it when I tried to start each park from the year it actually started on Merlin's graph... it got very mixed up, so I just decided to have 1983 as a uniform starting point for all of them and put 0 for any years before the park actually appears on the graph. That's why every park apart from Thorpe has a massive surge from the bottom towards the left of the graph... that's simply that park "entering" the graph, if you like.
I hope you find this interesting! If you find any errors in my calculations, do tell me (I apologise once again for the earlier mess-up of a few of the figures...), and also tell me if you'd like me to ask any more questions about this dataset!
If any of you are interested, I decided to play with the attendance data a little more this evening and answer a couple of questions!
For starters, I'd like to apologise sincerely, because I only just realised that I messed up a couple of the numbers so that they were off by about 20,000... sorry about that. I've corrected the incorrect readings now.
The first thing I decided to ask was...
How would the parks be ranked in terms of average all time attendance?
To answer this question, I applied the statistical measures of mean, median and mode to each theme park's attendance.
The first statistical measure I used was the mean. The mean is a calculated average, which I worked out by adding all of the attendance figures together and dividing them by the number of years each park had listed in the graph. When ranked by mean attendance, the parks stacked up as follows:
- Alton Towers - 2,429,688 (excluding 2020), 2,389,358 (including 2020)
- Legoland Windsor - 1,820,652 (excluding 2020), 1,772,135 (including 2020)
- Chessington World of Adventures - 1,425,189 (excluding 2020), 1,397,978 (including 2020)
- Thorpe Park - 1,396,250 (excluding 2020), 1,372,664 (including 2020)
The placements were much the same when I used median (the middle value):
- Alton Towers - 2,437,500 (excluding and including 2020)
- Legoland Windsor - 1,875,000 (excluding 2020), 1,781,250 (including 2020)
- Chessington World of Adventures - 1,437,500 (excluding and including 2020)
- Thorpe Park - 1,343,750 (excluding 2020), 1,312,500 (including 2020)
- Alton Towers - 2,875,000 (excluding and including 2020)
- Legoland Windsor - 1,500,000 (excluding and including 2020)
- Chessington World of Adventures - 1,437,500 (excluding and including 2020)
- Thorpe Park - 1,093,750 (excluding and including 2020)
- Alton Towers
- Legoland Windsor
- Chessington World of Adventures
- Thorpe Park
Have any of the parks had anomalous years, or outliers, in their history?
To answer this question, I decided to calculate the standard deviation, which is a statistical measure that tells you how much variation there is in your dataset.
I hear you asking "well, how is the standard deviation relevant to outliers?". Well, standard deviation is relevant because the definition of an outlier is any reading that is more than 2 standard deviations away from the mean on either side. With that in mind, I calculated the standard deviation of each park's attendance, and used that to work out the "normal" range of each park's attendance (the range of figures that falls within 2SD of the mean; if the attendance data followed a perfect bell curve/normal distribution, approximately 97.5% of the data would fall within 2SD of the mean). Any figures that fell outside this range were deemed to be outliers, or anomalous years.
Here's how each park fared in this regard...
Alton Towers
Excluding 2020
Mean All Time Attendance: 2,429,688
Standard Deviation: 392,762
Upper Bound of "Normal" Attendance Range: 3,215,212
Lower Bound of "Normal" Attendance Range: 1,644,163
Outliers: 1 (3,312,500 attained in 1994)
Including 2020
Mean All Time Attendance: 2,389,358
Standard Deviation: 458,428
Upper Bound of "Normal" Attendance Range: 3,306,214
Lower Bound of "Normal" Attendance Range: 1,472,503
Outliers: 2 (3,312,500 attained in 1994 and 937,500 attained in 2020)
Chessington World of Adventures
Excluding 2020
Mean All Time Attendance: 1,425,189
Standard Deviation: 259,927
Upper Bound of "Normal" Attendance Range: 1,945,044
Lower Bound of "Normal" Attendance Range: 905,335
Outliers: 1 (875,000 attained in 1987)
Including 2020
Mean All Time Attendance: 1,397,978
Standard Deviation: 301,149
Upper Bound of "Normal" Attendance Range: 2,000,276
Lower Bound of "Normal" Attendance Range: 795,680
Outliers: 1 (500,000 attained in 2020)
Legoland Windsor
Excluding 2020
Mean All Time Attendance: 1,820,652
Standard Deviation: 339,098
Upper Bound of "Normal" Attendance Range: 2,498,898
Lower Bound of "Normal" Attendance Range: 1,142,457
Outliers: 0
Including 2020
Mean All Time Attendance: 1,772,135
Standard Deviation: 408,021
Upper Bound of "Normal" Attendance Range: 2,588,157
Lower Bound of "Normal" Attendance Range: 956,094
Outliers: 1 (656,250 attained in 2020)
Thorpe Park
Excluding 2020
Mean All Time Attendance: 1,396,250
Standard Deviation: 384,292
Upper Bound of "Normal" Attendance Range: 2,164,833
Lower Bound of "Normal" Attendance Range: 627,667
Outliers: 1 (2,187,500 attained in 2010)
Including 2020
Mean All Time Attendance: 1,372,664
Standard Deviation: 405,989
Upper Bound of "Normal" Attendance Range: 2,184,643
Lower Bound of "Normal" Attendance Range: 560,686
Outliers: 2 (2,187,500 attained in 2010 and 500,000 attained in 2020)
It's really interesting to me to see that every single park has had at least one outlier at some point in its history! I knew that every park would have had 2020 as a giant outlier (that one needs no explanation, really...), but surprisingly, every park apart from Legoland had an anomalous year even prior to COVID. In Chessington's case, it was the park's all time low in 1987, while in the case of Alton and Thorpe, it was actually their all time peaks, in 1994 and 2010 respectively, that were outliers compared to the parks' other years attendance-wise.
You're probably wondering how outliers are actually relevant to theme park attendance. In fairness, they're not as relevant to theme park attendance as they would be in, say, a science experiment, but I think they're still important to consider, even though we are talking about theme park attendance rather than the growth of germ cultures in a petri dish or whatever.
In statistical terms, outliers are usually excluded from calculations such as averages and predictive analytics models. They are readings that are said to have a low chance of repeatability under normal circumstances, so my data suggests that the parks' anomalous years (both peaks and troughs) have produced attendance figures that there's a fair chance of the parks never hitting again, under normal circumstances at least. And when you look at the circumstances surrounding the parks' respective anomalous years, that would make some sense; the widespread anomalous low of 2020 was likely caused by COVID-19 and the associated lockdowns and social distancing (which certainly couldn't be referred to as "normal circumstances"), the anomalous Chessington low of 1987 was likely caused by it being the park's opening year and it only having half a season (which is unlikely to be repeated... the park will never have an opening year again, and a half-season is unlikely to be repeated under normal circumstances), and the anomalous Alton Towers and Thorpe Park highs were both likely caused by the opening years of freakishly successful major ride installations (I know Thorpe's was 2010 rather than 2009, but 2009 and 2011's figures were on the cusp of being outliers themselves, and 2009's massive increase was almost definitely stimulated by Saw), which likely wouldn't be considered "normal" circumstances.
I know that theme park attendance is a touch too nuanced for outliers to be set in stone, but I still think it's an interesting point to consider.
Another question I asked was...
Which parks have the most volatile attendance?
In order to answer this question, I once again employed our good friend standard deviation to measure the variability of each park's attendance.
In terms of standard deviation, the parks were ranked as follows:
Excluding 2020
- Alton Towers - 392,762
- Thorpe Park - 384,292
- Legoland Windsor - 339,098
- Chessington World of Adventures - 259,927
- Alton Towers - 458,428
- Legoland Windsor - 408,021
- Thorpe Park - 405,989
- Chessington World of Adventures - 301,149
Excluding 2020
- Thorpe Park - 27.5%
- Legoland Windsor - 18.6%
- Chessington World of Adventures - 18.2%
- Alton Towers - 16.2%
- Thorpe Park - 29.6%
- Legoland Windsor - 23.0%
- Chessington World of Adventures - 21.5%
- Alton Towers - 19.2%
This really puts into perspective how much higher the late 2000s and early 2010s were for attendance at Thorpe Park than any other point in its history, as well as how different Thorpe's growth trajectory has been to that of the other 3 parks. In spite of Thorpe having the most years on the graph, it only had one proper peak that it attained fairly late in its life. The park mostly ticked along at a fairly low attendance in its early years, peaking not much above the 1 million mark (quite often a bit below it, in fact; the park had numerous years of 900k or so, and its low is a little below 850k) for 20 years. The 1.5 million threshold was not breached until 2003, 20 years into Thorpe Park's time on the graph, and the peak of 2.1-2.2 million was only ever hit during the 2009-2011 period, with no year before or since coming even remotely close to it.
By comparison, Alton and Chessington both appear to have managed roughly 2 big growth cycles (or perhaps 1.5 in Chessington's case, as a trough never began in the 2nd one before COVID), and they've maintained a fairly high relative attendance throughout their lives on the graph (since 1984 in Alton's case and since 1987 in Chessington's case). Legoland never really had a trough, with that park having managed a fairly consistent, steady upward trajectory since appearing on the graph in 1997.
On a side note, I guess this also proves why you can't really rely on pure numbers on their own; Alton Towers had the highest actual number as its SD, but this was likely caused by its mean attendance being a solid peg higher than that of the other 3 parks, as its SD actually equated to the lowest percentage of mean attendance out of the 4.
The final question I asked was...
Which park fills to capacity the most?
Now I know that this one is based upon slightly more spurious reasoning, but I did think that this could be one question where the 2020 data might come in handy. I thought that the 2020 attendances might provide an interesting insight into this because in 2020, the parks were all open for the same amount of time, and all of them had heavily capped attendance, so hit capacity most of the time.
The way I thought I'd answer this question was by ranking the parks by how much lower their 2020 attendance was than their 2019 attendance (the percentage decrease). The park with the highest percentage decrease should, in theory, be the one that fills to capacity the most.
In terms of percentage decrease, the parks' 2020 attendances were ranked as follows:
- Chessington World of Adventures - -70.4% (500,000 vs 1,687,500)
- Legoland Windsor - -68.2% (656,250 vs 2,062,500)
- Thorpe Park - -66.7% (500,000 vs 1,500,000)
- Alton Towers - -62.5% (937,500 vs 2,500,000)
The 2020 figures would also imply that Alton Towers has the highest capacity of any of the UK Merlin parks by quite some margin; its 2020 figure was close to 1 million, while the others were more like 500,000 (Chessington and Thorpe were joint lowest at bang on 500k, while Legoland was a little higher and edged closer to 600-700k).
One final thing I should reveal is that I have condensed all of this data into a Google Sheet, which has each park's data and statistics listed alongside a labelled line graph showing all of them together for visual perspective:
From: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1T3bmW5I9gyq6AgqogFJ6xSppi8vRw-y2SWoRZPpfdzg/edit?usp=sharing
If you're wondering why every park in the spreadsheet starts from 1983, with the ones that start later than 1983 having 0 listed as their attendance for the early years, this was because the graph didn't seem to like it when I tried to start each park from the year it actually started on Merlin's graph... it got very mixed up, so I just decided to have 1983 as a uniform starting point for all of them and put 0 for any years before the park actually appears on the graph. That's why every park apart from Thorpe has a massive surge from the bottom towards the left of the graph... that's simply that park "entering" the graph, if you like.
I hope you find this interesting! If you find any errors in my calculations, do tell me (I apologise once again for the earlier mess-up of a few of the figures...), and also tell me if you'd like me to ask any more questions about this dataset!
Last edited:
Shaggy_Dog_
TS Member
And he didn’t even feel the need to unnecessarily apologise for the double post! A whipping is far too good for him, send him round for a few laps on a wheel seat on Nash, that’ll teach him!
[mention]Matt N [/mention] Don’t worry, we are just pulling your leg. Your stats and in-depth analysis posts are great and are both impressive and insightful.
Matt N
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Mako (SeaWorld Orlando)
I never even realised I was double posting… sorry about that.
The reason I didn’t do a TL;DR was because I didn’t feel I could summarise what I had written very well; I covered quite a few bases, so I think a TL;DR would likely have been quite long in itself.
The reason I didn’t do a TL;DR was because I didn’t feel I could summarise what I had written very well; I covered quite a few bases, so I think a TL;DR would likely have been quite long in itself.
Matt N
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Mako (SeaWorld Orlando)
It’s an abbreviation of the phrase “Too long; didn’t read”. Don’t worry, because it took me a bit of time to work out what they were too, but a TL;DR is basically a concise summary of a long piece of writing to allow people to ascertain your basic points without making them read your entire long piece of writing if they don’t want to.
As someone who is quite partial to writing a good long post from time to time, I now use them quite a bit so that those who struggle with long posts are fully catered to.
AT86
TS Member
As part of the consultation for the new Waterpark at Chessington Merlin have uploaded an updated version of attendance graph showing 2021 attendance and even 2022 attendance for Chessington.
Good to see Alton Towers 2021 guest numbers were almost back to pre-pandemic levels, in fact it looks like their second best year since 2013.
In comparison Legoland is trailing by some margin, considering they were more highly attended than Towers back in 2017.
Good to see Alton Towers 2021 guest numbers were almost back to pre-pandemic levels, in fact it looks like their second best year since 2013.
In comparison Legoland is trailing by some margin, considering they were more highly attended than Towers back in 2017.
Matt N
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Mako (SeaWorld Orlando)
Hurray! I’m very happy that this graph made a reappearance in an updated form so that we finally have 2021 (and in the case of Chessington, 2022) figures to view! Now isn’t the best time, as I’m currently sat in university awaiting a 1:15 lecture, but I shall certainly be having a play with this new graph and seeing what precise figures I can unearth at some point!
Alton Towers’ 2021 attendance is very promising indeed; without sitting down and determining in more depth, I’d take a stab at around 2.3-2.4 million for 2021 at first glance. Given that they managed their second highest attendance post-Smiler in a year where the park didn’t even open until April and attendance was still capped until July, I think that bodes very well, personally!
Chessington and Thorpe both look to have recovered pretty nicely too; both parks seemed to be within 250k or so of their 2019 figures in 2021, which I’d say is pretty decent and bodes well for the long term, myself.
In 2022, Chessington seemingly managed to roughly match 2017/18 attendance levels by eye, with only 2019 looking noticeably higher, from what I could see. That all bodes pretty well for the future!
LEGOLAND is the slightly more concerning one. I must admit that I’m surprised to see it have such a sluggish 2021; attendance appeared to be around 1.5-1.6 million by eye, remaining a good 500k below 2019 levels, and it looks like the lowest figure they’ve attained since 2007, at a rough glance. I wonder why LEGOLAND had such a sluggish post-COVID recovery compared to the others?
Alton Towers’ 2021 attendance is very promising indeed; without sitting down and determining in more depth, I’d take a stab at around 2.3-2.4 million for 2021 at first glance. Given that they managed their second highest attendance post-Smiler in a year where the park didn’t even open until April and attendance was still capped until July, I think that bodes very well, personally!
Chessington and Thorpe both look to have recovered pretty nicely too; both parks seemed to be within 250k or so of their 2019 figures in 2021, which I’d say is pretty decent and bodes well for the long term, myself.
In 2022, Chessington seemingly managed to roughly match 2017/18 attendance levels by eye, with only 2019 looking noticeably higher, from what I could see. That all bodes pretty well for the future!
LEGOLAND is the slightly more concerning one. I must admit that I’m surprised to see it have such a sluggish 2021; attendance appeared to be around 1.5-1.6 million by eye, remaining a good 500k below 2019 levels, and it looks like the lowest figure they’ve attained since 2007, at a rough glance. I wonder why LEGOLAND had such a sluggish post-COVID recovery compared to the others?
Islander
TS Member
I wouldn’t assume this is an indication poor performance - the early 2010’s saw a persistently overcrowded park, so it may be that following forced capacity restrictions during Covid, the park decided that a better experience was provided with slightly capped figures.
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Matt N
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Mako (SeaWorld Orlando)
Right, then! I've had a play about with the graph, and I've managed to extrapolate some figures!
I should firstly note that I have restated a few of the previous figures following closer examination of this new graph. I apologise for my earlier error; the mistakes have been rectified in my opening post.
The most notable thing I discovered are the 2021 figures for each Merlin park, as well as some seemingly altered 2020 figures and the 2022 figure for Chessington.
Final 2020 Figures
Now we have this information, we can work out... which park recovered the best from COVID in 2021?
There are multiple metrics by which we can establish this.
The first potential metric to use is the percentage increases in attendance that each park registered in 2021...
Percentage Increases
A more reliable metric to use is the net percentage decrease from 2019 to 2021...
Net Percentage Decreases Between 2019 and 2021
It should be noted that 2021 was still not an entirely COVID-free season, however, as the parks opened nearly a month late and attendance was still somewhat capped until July. With this in mind, 2022 attendance, when it is available for all parks, may be a better indicator... for what it's worth, Chessington's 2022 attendance remains approximately 11.3% lower than its 2019 attendance, so even in 2022, it has not recovered as strongly as Alton Towers managed to in 2021.
Finally, I should remind you that all of this data is viewable in a Google Sheet:
From: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1T3bmW5I9gyq6AgqogFJ6xSppi8vRw-y2SWoRZPpfdzg/edit?usp=sharing
I hope you find this interesting! I know I certainly found it interesting to compile... I'll hopefully see you again some time soon when the 2022 attendance is made available for all parks!
I should firstly note that I have restated a few of the previous figures following closer examination of this new graph. I apologise for my earlier error; the mistakes have been rectified in my opening post.
The most notable thing I discovered are the 2021 figures for each Merlin park, as well as some seemingly altered 2020 figures and the 2022 figure for Chessington.
Final 2020 Figures
- Alton Towers - 968,750 (-61.3%)
- Legoland Windsor - 687,500 (-66.7%)
- Thorpe Park - 562,500 (-62.5%)
- Chessington World of Adventures - 500,000 (-69.8%)
- Alton Towers - 2,343,750 (+141.9%)
- Legoland Windsor - 1,562,500 (+127.3%)
- Chessington World of Adventures - 1,281,250 (+156.3%)
- Thorpe Park - 1,218,750 (+116.7%)
Now we have this information, we can work out... which park recovered the best from COVID in 2021?
There are multiple metrics by which we can establish this.
The first potential metric to use is the percentage increases in attendance that each park registered in 2021...
Percentage Increases
- Chessington World of Adventures - +156.3% (1,281,250 in 2021 vs 500,000 in 2020)
- Alton Towers - +141.9% (2,343,750 in 2021 vs 968,750 in 2020)
- Legoland Windsor - +127.3% (1,562,500 in 2021 vs 687,500 in 2020)
- Thorpe Park - +116.7% (1,218,750 in 2021 vs 562,500 in 2020)
A more reliable metric to use is the net percentage decrease from 2019 to 2021...
Net Percentage Decreases Between 2019 and 2021
- Alton Towers - -6.3% (2,343,750 in 2021 vs 2,500,000 in 2019)
- Thorpe Park - -18.8% (1,218,750 in 2021 vs 1,500,000 in 2019)
- Chessington World of Adventures - -22.6% (1,281,250 in 2021 vs 1,656,250 in 2019)
- Legoland Windsor - -24.2% (1,562,500 in 2021 vs 2,062,500 in 2019)
It should be noted that 2021 was still not an entirely COVID-free season, however, as the parks opened nearly a month late and attendance was still somewhat capped until July. With this in mind, 2022 attendance, when it is available for all parks, may be a better indicator... for what it's worth, Chessington's 2022 attendance remains approximately 11.3% lower than its 2019 attendance, so even in 2022, it has not recovered as strongly as Alton Towers managed to in 2021.
Finally, I should remind you that all of this data is viewable in a Google Sheet:
From: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1T3bmW5I9gyq6AgqogFJ6xSppi8vRw-y2SWoRZPpfdzg/edit?usp=sharing
I hope you find this interesting! I know I certainly found it interesting to compile... I'll hopefully see you again some time soon when the 2022 attendance is made available for all parks!
Last edited:
Matt.GC
TS Member
I should take you to work with me Matt. I'm currently trying to build a business case for a certain type of refit and store layout with Covid and post Covid data, average basket spends, footfall changes, category performance changes, average customer age and socioeconomic group, changes in online participation, seasonal event performance changes (into the unknown this year with Christmas and a world cup at the same time!) and all that kind of stuff. Fancy some homework son?
QTXAdsy
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Black Hole
Late to the party for something...again!
That said after looking at Towers' attendance figures between 2017 and 2019, I was struck at how attendance seemed to grow quite considerably in which you could argue in an ideal world had they had a larger ride lineup and ofc no Covid in which it might have been possible for the park to be touching that magic 3 million mark (or something like 2,900,000 to be more truthful) had they managed to keep the momentum up in a trouble free 2020. Then again only way for this to keep a high 2 million or barely reaching 3 million guest mark is by having more days open throughout the year in which I have no doubt that this would be planned in the long term if that is where they want to go. Even if they did have a stronger ride line up far better than we have now E.g more flat rides/dark rides/entertainment etc. Transport has and always will be a problem for the park and I have had more own views of transport but that's going off topic but nonetheless a more rounded public transport link for the park would really make a world of difference and with cost of living with some unable to have private vehicles, this will be a factor that will come to haunt Merlin sooner than later if they kick this issue down the road or just flat out ignore it.
Chessington though was really treated dirty following the purchase of Thorpe and the figures during the 2000's really say it, ironically Thorpe now seems to be in a ropey place and the tables have turned on the London parks which if you were a diehard Chessie fan might feel is karma.
Matt N
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Mako (SeaWorld Orlando)
Disclaimer: This is a very long post with a fair amount of statistical talk. I'll try my best to simplify some of it a bit and explain a few things, but if you don't like statistics, this post may not be for you! There is a TL;DR at the bottom condensing the overall findings into a more concise format.
Sorry to bump this particular thread, but following a really interesting topic I read on another forum earlier about 2012 vs 2023 in terms of UK theme park attendance and what effect various factors have on attendance, I was inspired to revisit this dataset and explore the relationship between UK theme park attendance and various extrinsic factors, as these have previously raised some interesting discussion points surrounding the topic of UK theme park attendance.
Before I explore various different factors and their effect upon UK theme park attendance, I should firstly set out that the attendance I use is the combined attendance of all four theme parks from 1997 (the first year where all four are listed under their current guise) through until 2021. I tried all of my tests for the dataset including both 2020 and 2021, the dataset excluding 2020 only and the dataset excluding both 2020 and 2021, as I felt that the circumstances of 2020 in particular were too anomalous not to consider and I was unsure whether to even place 2021 among "normal" years, as the parks were still restricted to some degree for part of or all of the season. As such, I tested the data both including and excluding the COVID years, so that we could see the relationships exhibited pre, during and post COVID.
To test out whether a significant causal relationship exists between two variables, I used a Pearson correlation coefficient test, and the two metrics I used to determine this were the correlation coefficient itself and the p-value. To explain what each is:
The Weather
The weather is often referenced as a factor that could potentially be affecting UK theme park attendance, so I thought; why not test that theory out? Now, I hear you asking "Matt, there are so many different metrics of weather; which one did you test out?". That would be a fair question, and in answer, I tested out three different weather metrics; average rainfall in millimetres, average maximum temperature in degrees Celsius, and average number of hours of bright sunshine. To gain the relevant weather data, I took the months between April and October (the 7 months in which the parks are operating for the full month) for each metric for every year since 1997 from the Met Office weather data archive (https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/maps-and-data/uk-and-regional-series). I averaged out the values for the months from April-October of a given year and used that as that year's value for a given metric. I set the region as "England"; as all four Merlin parks are in England, I figured that the weather in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland was irrelevant for this particular investigation.
Average Rainfall (in millimetres)
So for our first metric, average rainfall in millimetres, the distribution of the data including 2020 and 2021 was as follows:
And the values returned after a Pearson correlation coefficient test to test for a relationship were as follows:
The distribution of the data excluding 2020 only was as follows:
And the values returned after a Pearson correlation coefficient test to test for a relationship were as follows:
The distribution of the data excluding both 2020 and 2021 was as follows:
And the values returned after a Pearson correlation coefficient test to test for a relationship were as follows:
So I think we can conclude that even though some signs of a weak negative correlation between the two are shown when you remove 2020 and 2021 from the equation, the overall evidence for a significant causal relationship between UK theme park attendance and average rainfall is weak; there isn't enough evidence to firmly argue in favour of a causal relationship, even if some signs point towards a weak negative correlation.
Average Maximum Temperature (in degrees Celsius)
For our second metric, average maximum temperature in degrees Celsius, the distribution of the data including 2020 and 2021 was as follows:
And the values returned after a Pearson correlation coefficient test to test for a relationship were as follows:
The distribution of the data excluding 2020 only was as follows:
And the values returned after a Pearson correlation coefficient test to test for a relationship were as follows:
The distribution of the data excluding both 2020 and 2021 was as follows:
And the values returned after a Pearson correlation coefficient test to test for a relationship were as follows:
So having tested the data both including and excluding the COVID data, I think it's safe to say that the chances of a significant causal relationship existing between UK theme park attendance and average maximum temperature are very, very slim. With a correlation coefficient of close to 0 once COVID data was removed, there is no compelling evidence in favour of a causal relationship existing.
Average Number of Hours of Bright Sunshine
For our final weather metric, average number of hours of bright sunshine, the distribution of the data including 2020 and 2021 was as follows:
And the values returned after a Pearson correlation coefficient test to test for a relationship were as follows:
The distribution of the data excluding 2020 was as follows:
And the values returned after a Pearson correlation coefficient test to test for a relationship were as follows:
The distribution of the data excluding both 2020 and 2021 was as follows:
And the values returned after a Pearson correlation coefficient test to test for a relationship were as follows:
So there is limited evidence in favour of a causal relationship between UK theme park attendance and the average number of hours of bright sunshine. The evidence there is leans positive, but that evidence is too limited to conclude even a weak correlation, and there certainly isn't enough evidence in favour of a causal relationship.
So in conclusion, then, the weather seemingly has less of an effect on UK theme park attendance than you might expect. The strongest evidence for a causal relationship between UK theme park attendance and any weather metric is presented by average rainfall, which shows some signs of a weak negative correlation, but even that presented insufficient evidence in favour of a significant causal relationship.
Weather is not the only external factor I explored, however. With our purse strings getting tighter as a result of the cost of living crisis, I thought that the economy would also be an interesting one to explore!
The Economy
With disposal incomes currently being lower across the country as a result of the cost of living crisis and rampant inflation, many have figured that the cost of living crisis may be having an effect on theme park attendance, so I thought that I'd test out some macroeconomic factors too.
In terms of the economic indicators, I tested; I tested three different ones. The first indicator I tested was annual GDP growth rate, with the figures being gained from this site (https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/GBR/united-kingdom/gdp-growth-rate). GDP, standing for Gross Domestic Product, is a measure of the UK's economic output, and high GDP growth is often seen as a sign of a healthy economy. Our politicians frequently talk about "growth", anyhow! The second indicator I tested was annual CPI inflation rate, with the figures being gained from this site (https://www.rateinflation.com/inflation-rate/uk-historical-inflation-rate/). CPI stands for Consumer Price Index, and the rate of CPI inflation is a measure of how much something such as a weekly shop is rising in cost by across a given time period. It's the figure used when newsreaders talk about inflation, and high CPI inflation is often seen as a bad sign for the state of the economy. The final indicator I tested was annual unemployment rate, with the figures being gained from this site (https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/GBR/united-kingdom/unemployment-rate). High unemployment rate is often seen as a sign of an unhealthy economy.
Annual GDP Growth Rate (%)
For our first economic metric, annual GDP growth rate, the distribution of the data including 2020 and 2021 was as follows:
And the values returned after a Pearson correlation coefficient test to test for a relationship were as follows:
The distribution of the data excluding 2020 only was as follows:
And the values returned after a Pearson correlation coefficient test to test for a relationship were as follows:
The distribution of the data excluding both 2020 and 2021 was as follows:
And the values returned after a Pearson correlation coefficient test to test for a relationship were as follows:
So I think we can conclude that there is some evidence in favour of a causal relationship between UK theme park attendance and annual GDP growth. All tests yielded at least marginally significant evidence in favour of a relationship, and all tests suggest a weak-to-moderate negative correlation once 2020 is removed. Thus, we can conclude that a relationship may exist, but it might not be the strongest.
Annual CPI Inflation Rate (%)
For our second economic metric, annual CPI inflation rate, the distribution of the data including 2020 and 2021 was as follows:
And the values returned after a Pearson correlation coefficient test to test for a relationship were as follows:
The distribution of the data excluding 2020 only was as follows:
And the values returned after a Pearson correlation coefficient test to test for a relationship were as follows:
The distribution of the data excluding both 2020 and 2021 was as follows:
And the values returned after a Pearson correlation coefficient test to test for a relationship were as follows:
So I think we can conclude that there is pretty significant evidence of a causal relationship between UK theme park attendance and annual CPI inflation rate. Once 2020 was removed, a moderate positive correlation between the two variables was consistently exhibited, and the evidence in favour of a relationship toed the line between significant and extremely significant, so I think it's fair to suggest that there could well be a link!
Annual Unemployment Rate (%)
For our final economic metric, annual unemployment rate, the distribution of the data including 2020 and 2021 was as follows:
And the values returned after a Pearson correlation coefficient test to test for a relationship were as follows:
The distribution of the data excluding 2020 only was as follows:
And the values returned after a Pearson correlation coefficient test to test for a relationship were as follows:
The distribution of the data excluding both 2020 and 2021 was as follows:
And the values returned after a Pearson correlation coefficient test to test for a relationship were as follows:
So I think we can conclude that the evidence for a causal relationship between UK theme park attendance and annual unemployment rate is fairly strong. All tests produced extremely significant evidence in favour of a relationship existing, and once 2020 was removed, the correlation coefficient was quite comfortably in the realms of a moderate-to-strong positive correlation. Thus, I think we can conclude that there may be a link between UK theme park attendance and annual unemployment rate!
Now we've analysed the data, I think it's about time we wrapped things up and discussed our findings...
Conclusion
So in conclusion, this analysis yielded some very interesting, and perhaps somewhat unexpected, results, in my view.
The weather is always discussed as a big factor affecting theme park attendance, but overall, the weather metrics seemingly affected attendance a lot less than you might expect within this dataset. The biggest affector of the weather metrics was average rainfall, and even that presented only very spurious evidence of a relationship with UK theme park attendance; at best, it showed minor signs of a weak negative correlation, and evidence in favour of a causal relationship was insufficient. With that being said, much of the limited evidence of relationships that was shown among the weather metrics did point in the general direction I would have expected, with rainfall pointing towards a negative relationship and sunshine erring towards a positive relationship. I was very surprised at the profound lack of trend when it came to temperature, however; the evidence of a relationship there was pretty much zero, with no real leaning in either direction.
The economy is also discussed, albeit less than weather, but unlike weather, the economic metrics seemingly affected attendance to a surprising degree within this dataset. Both CPI inflation rate and unemployment rate exhibited significant to extremely significant evidence of relationships and moderate correlations, and even GDP growth exhibited significant evidence of a relationship and a weak-to-moderate correlation. Interestingly, the evidence of relationships within the economic factors also pointed in the complete opposite direction to the one you'd initially expect, with the evidence of CPI inflation rate and unemployment rate having moderate positive correlations and GDP growth having a weak-to-moderate negative correlation suggesting that UK theme park attendance is generally higher when the economy is doing worse. That's not an outcome I would initially have expected; maybe there's something in the notion that UK parks often do well out of recessions?
I should note a few things here, however. For starters, correlation does not equal causation, and it should not be treated as concrete proof that x causes y. Just because my data suggests a certain correlation, that does not mean that there's necessarily a chain of causality that works that way in reality. I should also note that these parks do not operate in a vacuum, and these are far from the only factors affecting attendance; there are a wide smorgasbord of intrinsic and extrinsic factors, and it is a phenomenally multi-faceted issue.
Nonetheless, I hope you've found my investigation interesting! If you'd like me to investigate anything else, or if you think I've done something wrong, don't hesitate to tell me!
TL;DR: I performed an investigation into the relationship between UK theme park attendance and various extrinsic factors, with a key focus on the weather and the economy. The weather was found to not affect attendance to a statistically significant degree overall, with even the metric with the strongest-seeming relationship, rainfall, only showing spurious evidence of a causal relationship and exhibiting signs of a weak-to-insignificant correlation. The economy was found to have a far more significant effect, with CPI inflation rate and unemployment rate in particular exhibiting highly significant evidence of relationships and moderate-to-strong correlations. Interestingly, it was also found that perhaps unexpectedly, UK theme park attendance seems to be higher when economic strength is lower.
Sorry to bump this particular thread, but following a really interesting topic I read on another forum earlier about 2012 vs 2023 in terms of UK theme park attendance and what effect various factors have on attendance, I was inspired to revisit this dataset and explore the relationship between UK theme park attendance and various extrinsic factors, as these have previously raised some interesting discussion points surrounding the topic of UK theme park attendance.
Before I explore various different factors and their effect upon UK theme park attendance, I should firstly set out that the attendance I use is the combined attendance of all four theme parks from 1997 (the first year where all four are listed under their current guise) through until 2021. I tried all of my tests for the dataset including both 2020 and 2021, the dataset excluding 2020 only and the dataset excluding both 2020 and 2021, as I felt that the circumstances of 2020 in particular were too anomalous not to consider and I was unsure whether to even place 2021 among "normal" years, as the parks were still restricted to some degree for part of or all of the season. As such, I tested the data both including and excluding the COVID years, so that we could see the relationships exhibited pre, during and post COVID.
To test out whether a significant causal relationship exists between two variables, I used a Pearson correlation coefficient test, and the two metrics I used to determine this were the correlation coefficient itself and the p-value. To explain what each is:
- The correlation coefficient is a number between 1 and -1 that denotes how strong the causal relationship between two variables is. A correlation coefficient of 1 indicates a perfect positive correlation (i.e. "as x increases, y also increases"), a correlation coefficient of 0 indicates no correlation (i.e. "x has no significant effect on y"), and a correlation coefficient of -1 indicates a perfect negative correlation (i.e. "as x increases, y decreases"). As it is staggeringly rare to have a perfect correlation, I will denote the strength of the correlation by using the absolute value of the correlation coefficient as follows; an absolute coefficient of 0-0.25 indicates no significant correlation, an absolute coefficient of 0.25-0.5 indicates a weak correlation, an absolute coefficient of 0.5-0.75 indicates a moderate correlation, and an absolute coefficient of 0.75 or higher indicates a strong correlation.
- The p-value is the probability that a relationship does not exist, and it is a decimal falling between 0 and 1. It can be represented as a percentage; for instance, a p-value of 0.55 indicates that there is a 55% chance of a relationship not existing. In hypothesis testing, you want the p-value to be low if you are wanting to prove your hypothesis (in this case, that a causal relationship exists) and disprove the null hypothesis (in this case, that no causal relationship exists). I will denote how strong the evidence for a causal relationship is by using the p-value as follows; a p-value of 0.1 or higher indicates insufficient evidence in favour of a relationship, a p-value of 0.05-0.1 indicates marginally significant evidence in favour of a relationship, a p-value of 0.01-0.05 indicates significant evidence in favour of a relationship, and a p-value of less than 0.01 indicates extremely significant evidence in favour of a relationship.
The Weather
The weather is often referenced as a factor that could potentially be affecting UK theme park attendance, so I thought; why not test that theory out? Now, I hear you asking "Matt, there are so many different metrics of weather; which one did you test out?". That would be a fair question, and in answer, I tested out three different weather metrics; average rainfall in millimetres, average maximum temperature in degrees Celsius, and average number of hours of bright sunshine. To gain the relevant weather data, I took the months between April and October (the 7 months in which the parks are operating for the full month) for each metric for every year since 1997 from the Met Office weather data archive (https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/maps-and-data/uk-and-regional-series). I averaged out the values for the months from April-October of a given year and used that as that year's value for a given metric. I set the region as "England"; as all four Merlin parks are in England, I figured that the weather in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland was irrelevant for this particular investigation.
Average Rainfall (in millimetres)
So for our first metric, average rainfall in millimetres, the distribution of the data including 2020 and 2021 was as follows:
And the values returned after a Pearson correlation coefficient test to test for a relationship were as follows:
| P-Value | 0.44 (2dp) |
| Pearson Correlation Coefficient | -0.16 (2dp) |
| Evidence In Favour of a Relationship | Insufficient |
| Correlation Strength | No Significant Correlation |
The distribution of the data excluding 2020 only was as follows:
And the values returned after a Pearson correlation coefficient test to test for a relationship were as follows:
| P-Value | 0.26 (2dp) |
| Pearson Correlation Coefficient | -0.24 (2dp) |
| Evidence In Favour of a Relationship | Insufficient |
| Correlation Strength | No Significant Correlation |
The distribution of the data excluding both 2020 and 2021 was as follows:
And the values returned after a Pearson correlation coefficient test to test for a relationship were as follows:
| P-Value | 0.26 (2dp) |
| Pearson Correlation Coefficient | -0.25 (2dp) |
| Evidence In Favour of a Relationship | Insufficient |
| Correlation Strength | Weak Negative Correlation |
So I think we can conclude that even though some signs of a weak negative correlation between the two are shown when you remove 2020 and 2021 from the equation, the overall evidence for a significant causal relationship between UK theme park attendance and average rainfall is weak; there isn't enough evidence to firmly argue in favour of a causal relationship, even if some signs point towards a weak negative correlation.
Average Maximum Temperature (in degrees Celsius)
For our second metric, average maximum temperature in degrees Celsius, the distribution of the data including 2020 and 2021 was as follows:
And the values returned after a Pearson correlation coefficient test to test for a relationship were as follows:
| P-Value | 0.56 (2dp) |
| Pearson Correlation Coefficient | -0.12 (2dp) |
| Evidence In Favour of a Relationship | Insufficient |
| Correlation Strength | No Significant Correlation |
The distribution of the data excluding 2020 only was as follows:
And the values returned after a Pearson correlation coefficient test to test for a relationship were as follows:
| P-Value | 0.95 (2dp) |
| Pearson Correlation Coefficient | 0.01 (2dp) |
| Evidence In Favour of a Relationship | Insufficient |
| Correlation Strength | No Significant Correlation |
The distribution of the data excluding both 2020 and 2021 was as follows:
And the values returned after a Pearson correlation coefficient test to test for a relationship were as follows:
| P-Value | 0.96 (2dp) |
| Pearson Correlation Coefficient | 0.01 (2dp) |
| Evidence In Favour of a Relationship | Insufficient |
| Correlation Strength | No Significant Correlation |
So having tested the data both including and excluding the COVID data, I think it's safe to say that the chances of a significant causal relationship existing between UK theme park attendance and average maximum temperature are very, very slim. With a correlation coefficient of close to 0 once COVID data was removed, there is no compelling evidence in favour of a causal relationship existing.
Average Number of Hours of Bright Sunshine
For our final weather metric, average number of hours of bright sunshine, the distribution of the data including 2020 and 2021 was as follows:
And the values returned after a Pearson correlation coefficient test to test for a relationship were as follows:
| P-Value | 0.53 (2dp) |
| Pearson Correlation Coefficient | -0.13 (2dp) |
| Evidence In Favour of a Relationship | Insufficient |
| Correlation Strength | No Significant Correlation |
The distribution of the data excluding 2020 was as follows:
And the values returned after a Pearson correlation coefficient test to test for a relationship were as follows:
| P-Value | 0.45 (2dp) |
| Pearson Correlation Coefficient | 0.16 (2dp) |
| Evidence In Favour of a Relationship | Insufficient |
| Correlation Strength | No Significant Correlation |
The distribution of the data excluding both 2020 and 2021 was as follows:
And the values returned after a Pearson correlation coefficient test to test for a relationship were as follows:
| P-Value | 0.47 (2dp) |
| Pearson Correlation Coefficient | 0.16 (2dp) |
| Evidence In Favour of a Relationship | Insufficient |
| Correlation Strength | No Significant Correlation |
So there is limited evidence in favour of a causal relationship between UK theme park attendance and the average number of hours of bright sunshine. The evidence there is leans positive, but that evidence is too limited to conclude even a weak correlation, and there certainly isn't enough evidence in favour of a causal relationship.
So in conclusion, then, the weather seemingly has less of an effect on UK theme park attendance than you might expect. The strongest evidence for a causal relationship between UK theme park attendance and any weather metric is presented by average rainfall, which shows some signs of a weak negative correlation, but even that presented insufficient evidence in favour of a significant causal relationship.
Weather is not the only external factor I explored, however. With our purse strings getting tighter as a result of the cost of living crisis, I thought that the economy would also be an interesting one to explore!
The Economy
With disposal incomes currently being lower across the country as a result of the cost of living crisis and rampant inflation, many have figured that the cost of living crisis may be having an effect on theme park attendance, so I thought that I'd test out some macroeconomic factors too.
In terms of the economic indicators, I tested; I tested three different ones. The first indicator I tested was annual GDP growth rate, with the figures being gained from this site (https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/GBR/united-kingdom/gdp-growth-rate). GDP, standing for Gross Domestic Product, is a measure of the UK's economic output, and high GDP growth is often seen as a sign of a healthy economy. Our politicians frequently talk about "growth", anyhow! The second indicator I tested was annual CPI inflation rate, with the figures being gained from this site (https://www.rateinflation.com/inflation-rate/uk-historical-inflation-rate/). CPI stands for Consumer Price Index, and the rate of CPI inflation is a measure of how much something such as a weekly shop is rising in cost by across a given time period. It's the figure used when newsreaders talk about inflation, and high CPI inflation is often seen as a bad sign for the state of the economy. The final indicator I tested was annual unemployment rate, with the figures being gained from this site (https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/GBR/united-kingdom/unemployment-rate). High unemployment rate is often seen as a sign of an unhealthy economy.
Annual GDP Growth Rate (%)
For our first economic metric, annual GDP growth rate, the distribution of the data including 2020 and 2021 was as follows:
And the values returned after a Pearson correlation coefficient test to test for a relationship were as follows:
| P-Value | 0.02 (2dp) |
| Pearson Correlation Coefficient | 0.47 (2dp) |
| Evidence In Favour of a Relationship | Significant |
| Correlation Strength | Weak Positive Correlation |
The distribution of the data excluding 2020 only was as follows:
And the values returned after a Pearson correlation coefficient test to test for a relationship were as follows:
| P-Value | 0.02 (2dp) |
| Pearson Correlation Coefficient | -0.47 (2dp) |
| Evidence In Favour of a Relationship | Significant |
| Correlation Strength | Weak Negative Correlation |
The distribution of the data excluding both 2020 and 2021 was as follows:
And the values returned after a Pearson correlation coefficient test to test for a relationship were as follows:
| P-Value | 0.05 (2dp) |
| Pearson Correlation Coefficient | -0.41 (2dp) |
| Evidence In Favour of a Relationship | Marginally Significant |
| Correlation Strength | Weak Negative Correlation |
So I think we can conclude that there is some evidence in favour of a causal relationship between UK theme park attendance and annual GDP growth. All tests yielded at least marginally significant evidence in favour of a relationship, and all tests suggest a weak-to-moderate negative correlation once 2020 is removed. Thus, we can conclude that a relationship may exist, but it might not be the strongest.
Annual CPI Inflation Rate (%)
For our second economic metric, annual CPI inflation rate, the distribution of the data including 2020 and 2021 was as follows:
And the values returned after a Pearson correlation coefficient test to test for a relationship were as follows:
| P-Value | 0.02 (2dp) |
| Pearson Correlation Coefficient | 0.47 (2dp) |
| Evidence In Favour of a Relationship | Significant |
| Correlation Strength | Weak Positive Correlation |
The distribution of the data excluding 2020 only was as follows:
And the values returned after a Pearson correlation coefficient test to test for a relationship were as follows:
| P-Value | 0.01 (2dp) |
| Pearson Correlation Coefficient | 0.50 (2dp) |
| Evidence In Favour of a Relationship | Significant |
| Correlation Strength | Moderate Positive Correlation |
The distribution of the data excluding both 2020 and 2021 was as follows:
And the values returned after a Pearson correlation coefficient test to test for a relationship were as follows:
| P-Value | 0.01 (2dp) |
| Pearson Correlation Coefficient | 0.55 (2dp) |
| Evidence In Favour of a Relationship | Extremely Significant |
| Correlation Strength | Moderate Positive Correlation |
So I think we can conclude that there is pretty significant evidence of a causal relationship between UK theme park attendance and annual CPI inflation rate. Once 2020 was removed, a moderate positive correlation between the two variables was consistently exhibited, and the evidence in favour of a relationship toed the line between significant and extremely significant, so I think it's fair to suggest that there could well be a link!
Annual Unemployment Rate (%)
For our final economic metric, annual unemployment rate, the distribution of the data including 2020 and 2021 was as follows:
And the values returned after a Pearson correlation coefficient test to test for a relationship were as follows:
| P-Value | 0.01 (2dp) |
| Pearson Correlation Coefficient | 0.51 (2dp) |
| Evidence In Favour of a Relationship | Extremely Significant |
| Correlation Strength | Moderate Positive Correlation |
The distribution of the data excluding 2020 only was as follows:
And the values returned after a Pearson correlation coefficient test to test for a relationship were as follows:
| P-Value | 0.00 (2dp) |
| Pearson Correlation Coefficient | 0.61 (2dp) |
| Evidence In Favour of a Relationship | Extremely Significant |
| Correlation Strength | Moderate Positive Correlation |
The distribution of the data excluding both 2020 and 2021 was as follows:
And the values returned after a Pearson correlation coefficient test to test for a relationship were as follows:
| P-Value | 0.00 (2dp) |
| Pearson Correlation Coefficient | 0.60 (2dp) |
| Evidence In Favour of a Relationship | Extremely Significant |
| Correlation Strength | Moderate Positive Correlation |
So I think we can conclude that the evidence for a causal relationship between UK theme park attendance and annual unemployment rate is fairly strong. All tests produced extremely significant evidence in favour of a relationship existing, and once 2020 was removed, the correlation coefficient was quite comfortably in the realms of a moderate-to-strong positive correlation. Thus, I think we can conclude that there may be a link between UK theme park attendance and annual unemployment rate!
Now we've analysed the data, I think it's about time we wrapped things up and discussed our findings...
Conclusion
So in conclusion, this analysis yielded some very interesting, and perhaps somewhat unexpected, results, in my view.
The weather is always discussed as a big factor affecting theme park attendance, but overall, the weather metrics seemingly affected attendance a lot less than you might expect within this dataset. The biggest affector of the weather metrics was average rainfall, and even that presented only very spurious evidence of a relationship with UK theme park attendance; at best, it showed minor signs of a weak negative correlation, and evidence in favour of a causal relationship was insufficient. With that being said, much of the limited evidence of relationships that was shown among the weather metrics did point in the general direction I would have expected, with rainfall pointing towards a negative relationship and sunshine erring towards a positive relationship. I was very surprised at the profound lack of trend when it came to temperature, however; the evidence of a relationship there was pretty much zero, with no real leaning in either direction.
The economy is also discussed, albeit less than weather, but unlike weather, the economic metrics seemingly affected attendance to a surprising degree within this dataset. Both CPI inflation rate and unemployment rate exhibited significant to extremely significant evidence of relationships and moderate correlations, and even GDP growth exhibited significant evidence of a relationship and a weak-to-moderate correlation. Interestingly, the evidence of relationships within the economic factors also pointed in the complete opposite direction to the one you'd initially expect, with the evidence of CPI inflation rate and unemployment rate having moderate positive correlations and GDP growth having a weak-to-moderate negative correlation suggesting that UK theme park attendance is generally higher when the economy is doing worse. That's not an outcome I would initially have expected; maybe there's something in the notion that UK parks often do well out of recessions?
I should note a few things here, however. For starters, correlation does not equal causation, and it should not be treated as concrete proof that x causes y. Just because my data suggests a certain correlation, that does not mean that there's necessarily a chain of causality that works that way in reality. I should also note that these parks do not operate in a vacuum, and these are far from the only factors affecting attendance; there are a wide smorgasbord of intrinsic and extrinsic factors, and it is a phenomenally multi-faceted issue.
Nonetheless, I hope you've found my investigation interesting! If you'd like me to investigate anything else, or if you think I've done something wrong, don't hesitate to tell me!
TL;DR: I performed an investigation into the relationship between UK theme park attendance and various extrinsic factors, with a key focus on the weather and the economy. The weather was found to not affect attendance to a statistically significant degree overall, with even the metric with the strongest-seeming relationship, rainfall, only showing spurious evidence of a causal relationship and exhibiting signs of a weak-to-insignificant correlation. The economy was found to have a far more significant effect, with CPI inflation rate and unemployment rate in particular exhibiting highly significant evidence of relationships and moderate-to-strong correlations. Interestingly, it was also found that perhaps unexpectedly, UK theme park attendance seems to be higher when economic strength is lower.
Matt.GC
TS Member
I hate compiling and processing data, but absolutely love reading it and interpreting it. Hence why I'm studying for a Business Management Degree (the enjoyable bit) whilst simultaneously struggling to get a level 2 key skills in Maths (the not at all enjoyable bit) and watching YouTube tutorials on how to put tables into Microsoft Word documents (way too complicated for me). Perhaps me and you should team up Matt. Like Ying and Yang. Batman and Robin. Shredder and Krang (ask your parents).
Anyway, I think the analysis works quite well for weather.
Not so sure about Theme Parks and the economy though. Who is visiting them? Has this dynamic changed? How much are they paying to get in? How much are they spending whilst there? What is the Pass holder - day ticket ratio? These are questions that would need to be considered when using such a small time period to try and find a correlation between the economy and the impact it has on gate figures.
I feel the analysis for that particular correlation would need to incorporate a much larger time period. I'm thinking of the unemployment rate and recession of the mid 80's. Black Wednesday and the early 90's recession. The boom years of the late 90's and early 2000's. The 2008 financial crash and austerity. Any correlation between these events and key moments so far during the currently evolving economic woes of the country?
I feel a far longer term analysis in relation to economic factors would somewhat smooth out, if not eliminate, some of the shorter to medium term peaks and troughs arising from the data that could be caused by factors that you no longer have to take as much consideration of. Of course, factors such as the Smiler crash, Covid and maybe even 9/11 would have to be highlighted as they were major events.
There's one problem with this method however, and that's park investment. If we go back to the origin of the data that this thread was founded on, it came from Merlin with the sole intention of correlating a link between gate numbers and large scale investments in parks. Just a cursory glance there and it's evident that some major investments over the decades line up very closely with the UK's economic struggles.
Interestingly, I think that's more likely intentional rather than coincidental. I would love to know more on this subject as I'm very intrigued now.
Cool stuff though Matt. Further research needed and I may get a chance to do some of that in an upcoming assignment if I can get access to some data from somewhere. Give me an excuse to combine studies with a nerd hobby anyway.
Anyway, I think the analysis works quite well for weather.
Not so sure about Theme Parks and the economy though. Who is visiting them? Has this dynamic changed? How much are they paying to get in? How much are they spending whilst there? What is the Pass holder - day ticket ratio? These are questions that would need to be considered when using such a small time period to try and find a correlation between the economy and the impact it has on gate figures.
I feel the analysis for that particular correlation would need to incorporate a much larger time period. I'm thinking of the unemployment rate and recession of the mid 80's. Black Wednesday and the early 90's recession. The boom years of the late 90's and early 2000's. The 2008 financial crash and austerity. Any correlation between these events and key moments so far during the currently evolving economic woes of the country?
I feel a far longer term analysis in relation to economic factors would somewhat smooth out, if not eliminate, some of the shorter to medium term peaks and troughs arising from the data that could be caused by factors that you no longer have to take as much consideration of. Of course, factors such as the Smiler crash, Covid and maybe even 9/11 would have to be highlighted as they were major events.
There's one problem with this method however, and that's park investment. If we go back to the origin of the data that this thread was founded on, it came from Merlin with the sole intention of correlating a link between gate numbers and large scale investments in parks. Just a cursory glance there and it's evident that some major investments over the decades line up very closely with the UK's economic struggles.
Interestingly, I think that's more likely intentional rather than coincidental. I would love to know more on this subject as I'm very intrigued now.
Cool stuff though Matt. Further research needed and I may get a chance to do some of that in an upcoming assignment if I can get access to some data from somewhere. Give me an excuse to combine studies with a nerd hobby anyway.
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Matt N
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Mako (SeaWorld Orlando)
Sorry for the late reply, but the points you raise regarding the economy analysis are very valid and interesting, and I agree with a lot of what you say.
In terms of composition of visitors; that isn’t really something you need to consider when looking at a correlation between gate figures alone and the economy. Your point absolutely does expose the flaws of using gate figures alone as an indicator of prosperity, and it absolutely should be a consideration if you’re looking at a correlation between park prosperity overall and the economy. However, if you’re solely looking at a correlation between gate figures alone and the economy, then your analysis doesn’t really care about how those gate figures are composed. Such information is not provided by Merlin, and whether visitors are pass holders, voucher users or full price payers, they are still contributing to the overall metric of “gate figures”.
In terms of the analysis needing to encapsulate a longer time period and some greater economic extremes to be truly conclusive, I absolutely agree. For inflation in particular, I thought it was notable how wholly unremarkable the figures were across the entire time period, and I do strongly suspect that the positive correlation between inflation and theme park visitation might not necessarily hold under logical extremes of inflation similar to those that we are experiencing now. Unfortunately, this dataset only has data for the combined visitation of all 4 parks in their current guise dating back to 1997, and one of the flaws of using a smaller dataset is that it does make results less reliable. If I had access to visitation data for, say, Blackpool Pleasure Beach dating all the way back to its opening in 1896, that would encapsulate a far longer time period and far more economic extremes, which might make the results a bit more reliable.
One way I could have marginally gotten around that is by only using the data of one park; for instance, I could have used Alton Towers alone as my case study, which would have produced data going as far back as 1984. However, I didn’t opt for that because going for only one park risks your data being skewed by peculiarities of that particular park’s predicament and paints a picture of the situation at only that one park, whereas going for all 4 balances out each park’s individual quirks and foibles to some degree and paints a slightly more nationwide picture. In data analysis, it is almost always a case of “the more, the merrier”; the larger your dataset, the more accurate your results are likely to be.
I also agree that investment levels are another interesting point to consider; as I said at the end of the post, these parks do not exist in a vacuum and they are not the same from one year to the next, which will absolutely play a role. Quite possibly a more significant role than any external factors, in fact…
One thing that this debate reinforces perfectly is that there isn’t one simple answer when it comes to real world data analysis…
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Matt N
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Mako (SeaWorld Orlando)
Thorpe Park recently revealed that in 2023, they received around 1.5 million guests:
I have added this figure to the spreadsheet as 1,500,000, as even though this isn't coming from a new version of the Merlin graph (which I do hope is on its way before too long!), it is official park confirmation of guest figures.
1.5 million in 2023 is promising; that puts them on par with the pre-COVID figure from 2019!
I have added this figure to the spreadsheet as 1,500,000, as even though this isn't coming from a new version of the Merlin graph (which I do hope is on its way before too long!), it is official park confirmation of guest figures.
1.5 million in 2023 is promising; that puts them on par with the pre-COVID figure from 2019!
Zeock
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Is Wastelands Penitentiary (Tulleys Shocktober Fest) a ride? If not, my favourite ride is Nemesis.
That is a good figure. I would hope that they will receive a lot more in 2024.