Next International Resort [Universal Studios Great Britain]

[ThemeParkPriest]

Strength of Intellectual Properties
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.

	IPs	IPpcr	IPpc
Hong Kong	27	3.9	10.0
Australia	59	2.4	6.1
Singapore	14	2.3	6.0
USA	858	2.3	6.0
Canada	858	2.3	6.0
South Korea	105	2.1	5.3
United Kingdom	115	1.7	4.4
UAE	13	1.3	3.4
Taiwan	29	1.2	3.1
Sweden	12	1.2	3.1
Switzerland	9	1.0	2.6
France	62	1.0	2.5
Austria	8	0.9	2.3
Netherlands	15	0.9	2.3
Germany	64	0.8	2.0
Spain	33	0.7	1.8
Mexico	78	0.6	1.6
Italy	34	0.6	1.5
China	629	0.4	1.1
Japan	55	0.4	1.1
Brazil	86	0.4	1.0
Argentina	18	0.4	1.0
India	61	0.0	0.1

 

[ThemeParkPriest]

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...436/9781464814402.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	Ease of Doing 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

 

[MickeyWaffleCo.]

Table to be cleaned up later.

^New thread title suggestion

 

[mharrington]

Strength of Intellectual Properties
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.

	IPs	IPpcr	IPpc
Hong Kong	27	3.9	10.0
Australia	59	2.4	6.1
Singapore	14	2.3	6.0
USA	858	2.3	6.0
Canada	858	2.3	6.0
South Korea	105	2.1	5.3
United Kingdom	115	1.7	4.4
UAE	13	1.3	3.4
Taiwan	29	1.2	3.1
Sweden	12	1.2	3.1
Switzerland	9	1.0	2.6
France	62	1.0	2.5
Austria	8	0.9	2.3
Netherlands	15	0.9	2.3
Germany	64	0.8	2.0
Spain	33	0.7	1.8
Mexico	78	0.6	1.6
Italy	34	0.6	1.5
China	629	0.4	1.1
Japan	55	0.4	1.1
Brazil	86	0.4	1.0
Argentina	18	0.4	1.0
India	61	0.0	0.1

I'm guessing the strength of IPs is the same thing as (or at least similar to) the release of Disney films in those countries, but unfortunately, I can't seem to find any information on any international releases of these films (not pre-"Little Mermaid" films anyway) outside of Western Europe, Australia, Japan and, to a lesser degree, Brazil. Argentina is kind of hit or miss (so is Brazil, to be honest), and I have virtually nothing on Hong Kong (IMDB releases are mostly guesses and could be wrong), Singapore, South Korea, UAE, China or India. Even a lot of the Western European nations are hard to come by, such as Switzerland, Austria and parts of the Netherlands. When I said "outside of Western Europe", I meant mainly the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain, (part of) Italy, and Scandinavia, mostly Sweden. I really like to pick spots that already have had a long presence of Disney there.

 

[ThemeParkPriest]

I'm guessing the strength of IPs is the same thing as (or at least similar to) the release of Disney films in those countries, but unfortunately, I can't seem to find any information on any international releases of these films (not pre-"Little Mermaid" films anyway) outside of Western Europe, Australia, Japan and, to a lesser degree, Brazil. Argentina is kind of hit or miss (so is Brazil, to be honest), and I have virtually nothing on Hong Kong (IMDB releases are mostly guesses and could be wrong), Singapore, South Korea, UAE, China or India. Even a lot of the Western European nations are hard to come by, such as Switzerland, Austria and parts of the Netherlands. When I said "outside of Western Europe", I meant mainly the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain, (part of) Italy, and Scandinavia, mostly Sweden. I really like to pick spots that already have had a long presence of Disney there.

I think the early release dates were very much on the company’s minds when they began to look overseas. Now they probably see it as economic opportunities—what is the market (or potential market) in various places. Slightly different; for better or for worse.

 

[ThemeParkPriest]

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%)

 

[ThemeParkPriest]

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. If you are tagged here, please look at the next post to see how your project stands up.

@Disneylover152, @MANEATINGWREATH, @SappySappy, @wazowski_216, @Disney Dad 3000, @HomeImagineer, @mharrington, @guyvanvolen, @Disney Warrior, @MickeyMousketeer, @discoveryboy_97, @Twilight_Roxas, @mickeyfan5534

 

[ThemeParkPriest]

Initial Rankings for Locations
Below is the summary table for this project so far.

	Percentage	20	10	15	10	10	20	15	100
City	Country	Pop	GDP PC	Other Park	Talks	IPpc	Weather	Business	Total
Hong Kong	Hong Kong	20.0	5.3	0.0	10	10.0	9.8	12.8	67.9
Los Angeles	USA	7.4	7.3	0.0	10	6.0	18.6	12.6	62.0
Sydney	Australia	2.1	6.0	11.9	8	6.1	14.8	12.2	61.0
Dubai	UAE	0.9	5.0	11.5	10	3.4	10.8	12.1	53.6
Mexico City	Mexico	13.3	1.0	7.9	0	1.6	17.6	10.9	52.2
Beijing	China	16.5	1.2	0.0	10	1.1	10.6	11.7	51.1
Shanghai	China	15.1	1.2	0.0	10	1.1	9.8	11.7	48.9
Seoul	South Korea	13.4	3.6	0.8	2	5.3	10	12.6	47.7
Sao Paolo	Brazil	9.9	0.8	12.4	0	1.0	14.6	8.9	47.6
Orlando	USA	2.9	7.3	0.0	10	6.0	8.6	12.6	47.5
Bangalore	India	11.2	0.2	8.9	3	0.1	13.2	10.7	47.2
Paris	France	6.9	4.5	0.0	10	2.5	11	11.5	46.3
Barcelona	Spain	2.7	3.1	0.8	10	1.8	15.2	11.7	45.3
London	United Kingdom	10.4	4.7	0.3	3	4.4	9.6	12.5	44.9
Toronto	Canada	4.3	5.0	7.6	0	6.0	9.2	11.9	44.0
Chongqing	China	8.9	1.2	1.3	10	1.1	9.6	11.7	43.9
Tokyo	Japan	6.7	4.6	0.0	10	1.1	9.6	11.7	43.8
Singapore	Singapore	3.3	6.9	0.0	10	6.0	4	12.9	43.2
Berlin	Germany	2.3	5.3	0.8	10	2.0	9.2	12.0	41.6
Rio de Janeiro	Brazil	5.9	0.8	12.6	0	1.0	11.2	8.9	40.4
Alicante	Spain	1.2	3.1	1.1	8	1.8	13.4	11.7	40.3
Buenos Aires	Argentina	1.7	1.0	12.9	0	1.0	14.4	8.9	39.9
Geneva	Switzerland	4.0	10.0	0.4	0	2.6	10.8	11.5	39.2
Amsterdam	Netherlands	8.1	6.0	0.4	0	2.3	10.4	11.4	38.6
Rome	Italy	3.0	3.7	1.0	3	1.5	14.2	10.9	37.3
Vienna	Austria	1.9	5.6	1.0	0	2.3	13	11.8	35.5
Taipei	Taiwan	5.7	3.0	0.6	0	3.1	9	12.1	33.6
Stockholm	Sweden	1.0	6.0	1.4	0	3.1	7.4	12.3	31.2

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)

 

[mharrington]

Initial Rankings for Locations
Below is the summary table for this project so far.

	Percentage	20	10	15	10	10	20	15	100
City	Country	Pop	GDP PC	Other Park	Talks	IPpc	Weather	Business	Total
Hong Kong	Hong Kong	20.0	5.3	0.0	10	10.0	9.8	12.8	67.9
Los Angeles	USA	7.4	7.3	0.0	10	6.0	18.6	12.6	62.0
Sydney	Australia	2.1	6.0	11.9	8	6.1	14.8	12.2	61.0
Dubai	UAE	0.9	5.0	11.5	10	3.4	10.8	12.1	53.6
Mexico City	Mexico	13.3	1.0	7.9	0	1.6	17.6	10.9	52.2
Beijing	China	16.5	1.2	0.0	10	1.1	10.6	11.7	51.1
Shanghai	China	15.1	1.2	0.0	10	1.1	9.8	11.7	48.9
Seoul	South Korea	13.4	3.6	0.8	2	5.3	10	12.6	47.7
Sao Paolo	Brazil	9.9	0.8	12.4	0	1.0	14.6	8.9	47.6
Orlando	USA	2.9	7.3	0.0	10	6.0	8.6	12.6	47.5
Bangalore	India	11.2	0.2	8.9	3	0.1	13.2	10.7	47.2
Paris	France	6.9	4.5	0.0	10	2.5	11	11.5	46.3
Barcelona	Spain	2.7	3.1	0.8	10	1.8	15.2	11.7	45.3
London	United Kingdom	10.4	4.7	0.3	3	4.4	9.6	12.5	44.9
Toronto	Canada	4.3	5.0	7.6	0	6.0	9.2	11.9	44.0
Chongqing	China	8.9	1.2	1.3	10	1.1	9.6	11.7	43.9
Tokyo	Japan	6.7	4.6	0.0	10	1.1	9.6	11.7	43.8
Singapore	Singapore	3.3	6.9	0.0	10	6.0	4	12.9	43.2
Berlin	Germany	2.3	5.3	0.8	10	2.0	9.2	12.0	41.6
Rio de Janeiro	Brazil	5.9	0.8	12.6	0	1.0	11.2	8.9	40.4
Alicante	Spain	1.2	3.1	1.1	8	1.8	13.4	11.7	40.3
Buenos Aires	Argentina	1.7	1.0	12.9	0	1.0	14.4	8.9	39.9
Geneva	Switzerland	4.0	10.0	0.4	0	2.6	10.8	11.5	39.2
Amsterdam	Netherlands	8.1	6.0	0.4	0	2.3	10.4	11.4	38.6
Rome	Italy	3.0	3.7	1.0	3	1.5	14.2	10.9	37.3
Vienna	Austria	1.9	5.6	1.0	0	2.3	13	11.8	35.5
Taipei	Taiwan	5.7	3.0	0.6	0	3.1	9	12.1	33.6
Stockholm	Sweden	1.0	6.0	1.4	0	3.1	7.4	12.3	31.2

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)

I'm not really sure Mexico City is a good choice, particularly given its proximity to both U.S. parks. I'm also not sure if Australia can realistically support a Disney park, especially given its proximity to the Asian parks. I also am totally unfamiliar with the release history of Disney films in Dubai. Plus, it's just really too darn hot there. I believe the parks they have there are (at least partially) indoors for a reason.

 

[ThemeParkPriest]

I'm not really sure Mexico City is a good choice, particularly given its proximity to both U.S. parks. I'm also not sure if Australia can realistically support a Disney park, especially given its proximity to the Asian parks. I also am totally unfamiliar with the release history of Disney films in Dubai. Plus, it's just really too darn hot there. I believe the parks they have there are (at least partially) indoors for a reason.

So all of the things you mentioned were taken into consideration in the rankings. Mexico City is almost 1300 miles from Orlando and over 1500 miles from Anaheim. Australia is quite far from any other big park--(Universal) Singapore is about 3900 miles away. Dubai's climate scored a 54, which is better than some other locations that already have a major park (Singapore is 20, Orlando is around 43, Hong Kong is 49, Beijing is 53, and Shanghai is 49).

 

[ThemeParkPriest]

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.

 

[mharrington]

So all of the things you mentioned were taken into consideration in the rankings. Mexico City is almost 1300 miles from Orlando and over 1500 miles from Anaheim. Australia is quite far from any other big park--(Universal) Singapore is about 3900 miles away. Dubai's climate scored a 54, which is better than some other locations that already have a major park (Singapore is 20, Orlando is around 43, Hong Kong is 49, Beijing is 53, and Shanghai is 49).

I believe Australia was briefly considered for their next venue before Hong Kong was chosen instead. If Australia was chosen, it would have to be vastly different from any other park that came before it, even Shanghai, which is already a bit of a departure from other parks that came before that.

Also, I could be mistaken, but don't the American parks benefit from people coming in from Mexico?

 

[ThemeParkPriest]

I believe Australia was briefly considered for their next venue before Hong Kong was chosen instead. If Australia was chosen, it would have to be vastly different from any other park that came before it, even Shanghai, which is already a bit of a departure from other parks that came before that.

Also, I could be mistaken, but don't the American parks benefit from people coming in from Mexico?

So Hong Kong DL opened in 2005. The Sydney project fell through, I believe, in 2007. So Shanghai was probably the Sydney “replacement.”

And hard to know how many people from Latin America come to the Disney parks. Perhaps somebody who goes regularly could speak to that. So yeah they might be less likely to come to the States, but it also means some US citizens would go to Mexico for the new park.

 

[mharrington]

So Hong Kong DL opened in 2005. The Sydney project fell through, I believe, in 2007. So Shanghai was probably the Sydney “replacement.”

And hard to know how many people from Latin America come to the Disney parks. Perhaps somebody who goes regularly could speak to that. So yeah they might be less likely to come to the States, but it also means some US citizens would go to Mexico for the new park.

I don't know how many people visit the U.S. parks from Mexico, but I'm pretty sure the U.S. parks must benefit from them to a point, especially if the Florida resort in particular benefits from people coming from Brazil. I went to WDW one year, and it was practically overrun with large tourist groups from Brazil.

 

[ThemeParkPriest]

Russia (Pre-War)
Much of the world has had its eyes on Ukraine over the last few weeks as Russia has gone to war with Ukraine. As this relates to the theme park world, Universal Studios had announced in early 2017 that an indoor theme park (Universal Studios Russia) was coming to Moscow sometime in 2022. Obviously, the Coronavirus pandemic would have pushed that timeline back. There also hasn’t been much conversation about the park since the original announcement, so it’s difficult to know the status of the project. Nonetheless, the success of the project is much in jeopardy at this point.

Using the same criteria as I had earlier in the “Next International Resort” analysis, I evaluated how well Moscow would have been as a location prior to the war. I will call this “Moscow, Russia (2021).” The next step will be to evaluate Moscow post-war.

Moscow (2021) overall rating is 47.8, which would put it basically tied with Seoul, South Korea for 8th place in the above rankings. It gets high grades for distance to other parks and the fact that talks were underway. It gets low grades for weather and IP penetration.

Note: I might be revising the points for distance to other parks. I might have been too harsh on locations that were near other parks.

 

[ThemeParkPriest]

Russia (During War)
In short, the rating for Moscow drops to 35.3 (from 47.8) due to the war. This puts it near the bottom of the rankings (and perhaps at the very bottom when I revise the distance from other parks criterion).

The only criterion that hasn't really changed value for a Moscow theme park since the current (iteration of) war with the Ukraine is weather. But this is still worth discussing, too, since I didn't detail it in the last post. Although Moscow gets low marks for weather, the Universal Studios park is planned as an indoor one. This means that the weather sort of becomes a non-factor in a guest's experience at the park.

For population, it is difficult to know how many people are fleeing Moscow. I assumed approximately 10% of the population. Certainly the Russian ruble has decreased value astronomically and Russian banks have been frozen. I took off half of the Russian GDP. The occurrence of talks went from a 10 to a 4; basically any previous discussions get put on-hold while a country is at-war. I halved the IP penetration criterion as Russians aren't going to be focused on going to movie theaters at this time. Ease of doing business also took a significant hit from 78.2 to 46.0 (this later value represents a value close to Afghanistan and Ethiopia, which are two other countries that are currently at-war).

Certainly other analysts would give higher or lower ratings to Russia right now, but this was my attempt to provide a snapshot of the impact of the war.

 

[ThemeParkPriest]

It's been months since I've even opened up my spreadsheet, but here we are!

Taipei (After Takeover)
Tensions are increasing in Taiwan as China looks to tighten its grip. A takeover could lead to Taiwan being less desirable to do business in.

In short, the rating for Taipei drops to 32.4 (from 36.1) due to the impending takeover. I gave it a business score of 56 (more than 46 for countries that are at war). Taipei was already near the bottom of the rankings, but now it is once again at the bottom of the rankings.

 

[ThemeParkPriest]

Universal Studios Texas (Frisco, TX)
Universal has announced that it is building a small theme park for young families in a suburb of Dallas, Texas (Frisco). The resort is unnamed, but for simplicity sake, let's call it "Universal Studios Texas." From the criteria that I've used in evaluating other potential locations around the world for theme parks, where does it stack up?

Determining a value for its climate was difficult to do as it is not in the table I used for almost every other city in this study (although Orlando is probably rated lower than it should be due to using 'hot' Miami as a substitute). One site that ranks climates gave Frisco a 7.3 out of 10, so I used this in my computation. Being 1105 miles from Orlando, it is a good distance to not have to compete with the Orlando market. And population-wise, it has almost 8.0 million people within 100 miles (compared with 7.3 million in Orlando).

Compared with all other cities studied so far, Frisco, with a 61.4 final rating, ranks only behind Hong Kong and Los Angeles. So it seems like it may be a great pick for Universal!

 

[Snow Queen 83]

It seems like Universal wants to get the local park dollars. It's smart they can do just as good or better than Legoland.

 

[itsy bitsy spider]

I would love to see one in space someday. I guess that wouldn't count for international though, it would be galactic.