By Brady MacDonald
From The Orange County Register
Attendance at Disneyland, Universal Studios Hollywood and other Southern California theme parks has not quite reached prepandemic levels despite crowds and lines that might make visitors think otherwise.
Southern California theme park attendance in 2022 nearly bounced back to pre-pandemic 2019 crowd levels, according to a new report from the Themed Entertainment Association and AECOM.
Southern California attendance in 2022 (90 percent vs. 2019) was on par with U.S. theme parks (88 percent vs. 2019) and well ahead of parks worldwide (79 percent vs. 2019) compared to prepandemic levels, according to the TEA/AECOM report.
Disneyland’s 16.9 million visitors in 2022 was 90percent of the 18.7 million that came to the park in 2019, according to the TEA/AECOM report. Disney California Adventure did slightly better at 91 percent—tallying 9 million visitors in 2022 compared to 9.9 million in 2019….