The Experience Economist

The Experience Economist: Asia Pacific Edition 2026 – Focus on China

The Experience Economist: Asia Pacific (APAC) Edition 2026 – Focus on China is Leisure Development Partners’ (LDP) update on the volume, value and impact of theme parks and waterparks across Asia Pacific, with a deeper look at China as the world’s second-largest theme park market. This edition refreshes the 2025 APAC macroeconomic picture and sets out where the next decade of expansion is likely to come from.

What the APAC 2026 report covers

This edition highlights that Asia’s growth story has shifted from volume to value. Attendance is only modestly higher, but economic impact is rising faster because ticket prices and in-park spend are up, and new capacity has opened — including Legoland Shanghai and Shanghai Yaoxue Water World.

China remains the scale market. Long-term headroom is still large: fewer than 30 percent of the population has visited a theme park, compared with about 70 percent in more mature markets. Visitation sits at around 187 visits per 1,000 people, well below Japan and South Korea. The catch is uneven development. Tier 1 cities are maturing. Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities are entering a faster phase of leisure spending.

Key findings from the 2026 APAC edition

• Asia-Pacific theme park and waterpark attendance rose from 498 million in 2024 to 504 million in 2025 (+1.1 percent).
• China attendance rose from 261 million to 263 million (+0.7 percent).
• Like-for-like attendance eased in China, Indonesia and Vietnam, but rose in India, Hong Kong and Japan.
• Economic impact outpaced visits: Asia US$34.8bn to US$37.0bn (+6.3 percent); China US$17.3bn to US$18.4bn (+6.8 percent).
• Employment impact: Asia 590,600 to 595,000 (+0.7 percent); China 319,000 to 321,000 (+0.6 percent).
• Visits per 1,000 residents grew fastest in India and Singapore (+7.1 percent), Vietnam (+5.2 percent) and Hong Kong SAR (+4.7 percent).
• Spend per head rose in every market tracked, led by India (+13.0 percent), the Philippines (+6.1 percent) and China (+6.0 percent).
• Economic impact jumped in India (+22.1 percent) and kept growing in China (+6.8 percent), but fell in Taiwan (-5.3 percent), Malaysia (-3.7 percent), Australia (-0.9 percent) and Korea (-0.6 percent).
• Only around half of existing Chinese theme parks achieve long-term success, so planning, differentiation and operating efficiency matter as much as new supply.

Market snapshot: theme parks and waterparks across APAC

Figures below show 2025 comparison (population and GDP from IMF WEO April 2025; attendance, spend, impact and jobs from LDP databases with OECD multipliers). The attendance sample covers parks with more than 100,000 visits.

Sources cited in the report: IMF World Economic Outlook, April 2025; LDP park databases; OECD multipliers.

China focus: a new decade of expansion

China is already the world’s second-largest theme park market and is still adding capacity even while headline visitation has softened. The next decade will not be a repeat of the last boom in Tier 1 coastal megacities, it will be about taking proven quality into rising urban markets.

China’s city-tier demand curve

The report uses China’s city-tier system (GDP, population, infrastructure and economic influence) is utilised to explain why one national average hides several markets:

• Tier 1 cities such as Shanghai and Shenzhen exceed US$30,000 GDP per capita. They are moving into maturity: higher guest expectations, slower volume growth, and a need to reinvent product.
• Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities typically sit at US$10,000–18,000 GDP per capita. Beyond the top economic centres there are around 100 such cities with large resident bases and rising household incomes.
• Discretionary leisure spend accelerates once cities cross about US$12,000–15,000 GDP per capita — an S-curve of demand.
• Lower-tier markets still need more carefully scaled schemes rather than destination mega-parks copied from Shanghai or Shenzhen.

Demand drivers and product shift

Growth is underpinned by a larger middle class, family leisure demand, and a turn toward short-haul and local tourism. In Tier 1 cities the product mix is moving off ride-led parks toward immersive, IP-led and technology-rich experiences. Examples cited include LEGOLAND developments, Zootopia at Shanghai Disneyland, and family brands such as Peppa Pig parks.

Other formats flagged as leading the next wave:

• Climate-proof indoor mega-destinations with year-round, stacked capacity — Shanghai L+SNOW and Chimelong Spaceship.
• Culture-plus-tech venues using VR, projection mapping and interactive storytelling — Shenzhen Science and Technology Museum.
• Walkable mixed-reality districts, such as the Grand Canal Cultural Tourism Area in Tongzhou, Beijing, where an AR layer sits on the live streetscape.
• One-stop destination hybrids that combine attractions with retail, food and beverage, hotels and events. Chimelong Tourist Resort is used as the integrated-ecosystem example, built to lift dwell time and spend.

Risks the report does not gloss over

Demand is not the same as profit. Only approximately half of existing Chinese theme parks succeed over the long term. Content fatigue requires continual reinvestment to win repeat visits. Fast pipeline growth also creates a risk of localised oversupply in some regional markets. Earlier boom-year projects sometimes skipped the feasibility work a mature market now expects — and investors are becoming more disciplined as a result.

Who should read this report

• International operators assessing China or wider APAC expansion, especially outside Tier 1 cities.
• Domestic developers choosing scale, IP and indoor versus outdoor formats by city tier.
• Investors and lenders testing whether a scheme is sized to local income, not only to headline population.
• Destination and mixed-use teams combining parks with retail, hotels and cultural product.
• Operators in mature APAC markets (Japan, Korea, Australia, Taiwan) benchmarking yield-led rather than volume-led growth.