For Part 1, see https://themeparkpriest.weebly.com/blog/next-international-theme-park-part-1next-international-theme-park-part-1.html. Some tables are not shown here due to the difficulty of adding them to Weebly. Gross Domestic Product per Capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is a measure of how strong an economy is. GDP per capita gives a measure of how wealthy an individual citizen is in that country. The World Bank gives the most recent GDP per capita (in US dollar) for the world’s countries (https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?most_recent_value_desc=true). The country with the highest GDP per capita is Monaco with $190,500. Burundi has the lowest GDP per capita at $271. Places like Switzerland, Netherlands, and Australia are all in good financial positions to support a theme park resort. India, on the contrary, has such a low GDP per capita that most citizens would not be able to go to the resort (even if the tickets and lodging were significantly less). This doesn’t rule out building a resort in India as with the high population there are still many people who would still be able to make use of such a resort. Geneva, Switzerland, 86600 Los Angeles, USA, 63500 Singapore, Singapore, 59800 Amsterdam, Netherlands, 52300 Stockholm, Sweden, 51900 Sydney, Australia, 51800 Vienna, Austria, 48100 Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 46300 Berlin, Germany, 45700 Toronto, Canada, 43200 Dubai, UAE, 43100 London, United Kingdom, 40300 Tokyo, Japan, 40100 Paris, France, 38600 Rome, Italy, 31700 Seoul, South Korea, 31500 Alicante, Spain, 27100 Barcelona, Spain, 27100 Taipei, Taiwan, 25900 China, 10500 Buenos Aires, Argentina, 8400 Mexico City, Mexico, 8300 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 6800 Sao Paolo, Brazil, 6800 Bangalore, India, 1900 Distance to Another Top-Tier Park Increasing distance to another top-tier park is generally seen as a desirable criterion when deciding where to build a park. A park that is close to other top-tier parks might find that the market is too saturated, especially if there is a circumstance that makes people less likely to go to the parks (such as a downturn in the economy or an epidemic). However, it should be noted that there are some locations (like Orlando) where there is sort of a synergy with competing parks. Points for this criterion will be awarded for miles up to 1000 that it would be from other parks; additional parks will be awarded for the far away locations. The distance in miles to the nearest top-tier park are shown below. As can be seen, there isn’t any park near South America, whereas some potential places in Europe or Asia might find competition too close. Population There are tools on the internet for determining the approximate population of an area. I used Free Map Tools (https://www.freemaptools.com/find-population.htm). The radius (for the area) can be changed; I selected a 100-mile radius. Those who are in about 100 miles of a theme park could do a day trip (or a 1-night trip) to the park, so it gives some idea of how many people are the potential “regular” visitors. As seen in the table below, the area around Hong Kong has 51.7 million people. Dubai and Stockholm have a little over 2 million people, so they might not be super high on Disney or Universal’s short list. Please note that Chongqing, China was difficult to search for, so an approximation was made from its Wikipedia page. Intellectual Properties Influence Disney and Universal have good internal numbers as to where their Intellectual Properties (IPs) are popular. From the outside, though, it can be tough to know where IPs are well-received. Avengers: End Game is the top grossing box office movie of all time at $2.8 Billion, so it is a relatively good measure of how well Disney is received. The End Game box office revenue from every country can be found on https://www.boxofficemojo.com/releasegroup/gr3511898629/. The United States and Canada are considered the “domestic” market. Below are the countries being considered in this project. The first column (IPs) shows the gross box office revenue for End Game. The second column (IPpcr) shows a ratio for the revenue relative to the country’s population. The third column (IPpc) gives each country a score (out of 10) that each country would receive for this criterion. As you can see, End Game was very well received in Hong Kong. On the low end of the scale is India. This criterion is related a lot to GDP per capita. Ease of Doing Business I wasn’t sure how it would be possible to determine how easy it is to do business in other countries. The World Bank, though, gives ratings for each country as companies try to engage in business (https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/32436/9781464814402.pdf?sequence=24&isAllowed=y). Table 0.1 on page 4 gives the ratings. The maximum possible score is 100—if a country were to receive a perfect 10 on 10 different criteria. Singapore with a rating of 86.2 is the 2nd easiest country to do business with (New Zealand is the easiest). This rating suggests that Brazil and Argentina would be rather challenging to work with. Country Business Singapore 86.2 Hong Kong 85.3 USA 84.0 South Korea 84.0 United Kingdom 83.5 Sweden 82.0 Australia 81.2 UAE 80.9 Taiwan 80.9 Germany 79.7 Canada 79.6 Austria 78.7 Japan 78.0 China 77.9 Spain 77.9 France 76.8 Switzerland 76.6 Netherlands 76.1 Italy 72.9 Mexico 72.4 India 71.0 Brazil 59.1 Argentina 59.0 How the Rating for Potential International Park is Calculated I am almost ready to release the first set of rankings for potential international theme parks. Some original criteria, such as enough land available and travel time to an international airport, are difficult to determine without additional research. Site locations that have been selected as part of existing proposals (such as on the WDWMagic Imagineering Forum) could be studied further with these criteria. Other criteria that were suggested from others have not been included at this time, because I was not sure how to rate them. There were 7 criteria used in this set of ratings. A few criteria were rated higher than the others. Although popularity of IPs and country’s GDP are important measures; the two of them are similar, so they will not be weighted any more than they are. The weights for the criteria: Popularity of IPs in country (10%) Whether initial discussions have taken place to build a top-tier resort (10%) Population within 100 miles (20%) Distance from other top-tier theme park (15%) Country’s GDP per Capita (10%) Ease of Doing Business in Country (15%) Weather (20%) Interested Parties There are many projects already on the WDWMagic Imagineering Forum that have projects located in the countries that are considered in this study. Initial Rankings for Locations Below is the summary table for this project so far. Best locations of parks: 1. Hong Kong (67.9), 2. Los Angeles (62.0), 3. Sydney (61.0), 4. Dubai (53.6), 5. Mexico City (52.2) Best locations of parks (without a current park): 1. Sydney (61.0), 2. Dubai (53.6), 3. Mexico City (52.2), 4. Seoul (47.7), 5. Sao Paolo (47.6) Analysis
It is probably not too surprising that Hong Kong tops the list knowing now that there is over 50 million people within 100 miles of there. The market for movies seems quite large there, too. Disney putting a park (albeit small, at least initially) was a good, calculated risk. If Universal had access to a sizable plot of land there (or in nearby Macau or Guangzhou), they would also benefit from the market. It should be noted that there is a major aquatic theme park in Hong Kong. Los Angeles got high marks, especially due to its great climate. Disney is planning to expand its parks significantly, but there isn’t another park in the plans for Disney or Universal there at this time. The best locations that do not have a current park was somewhat surprising. Sydney scored high, in part because it had come close to having a Disney park before. Based on the high ranking of Dubai, I would think that Universal would try to resurrect their project there. Mexico City seems like it could be poised to be a good fit for either company (whichever one decides to pursue it). I was expecting that the eastern Asian cities (Seoul, Chongqing, and Bangalore) would be near the top. Seoul got marked down due to its closeness to Shanghai, although the distance feels greater due to the Yellow Sea being in the middle and the fact that China has very different regulations than South Korea. Chongqing got downgraded because of its closeness (to Hong Kong) and the fact it has a smaller population than Beijing and Shanghai. India, due to its high rate of poverty, is probably not high on Universal or Disney’s radar, but that could change in the future if it closes the economic gap with other nations. The locations near the bottom of the list have their own major drawbacks. I would have expected Buenos Aires to be rated higher, but it has a rather modest population.
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