The Impact of COVID-19 on the Theme Park Industry

Breezlyn Lash*, Ajay Aluri

Hospitality Innovation and Technology Lab, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV 26506

Presentation Category: Oral-Human Engagement (Oral Presentation #1)

Student’s Major: Hospitality and Tourism Management

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of COVID-19 on the theme park industry. The theme park industry offers insights regarding leisure, group, and business travel and to examine consumer behavior and travel patterns during the pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic has greatly impacted the entire hospitality and tourism industry. With some theme parks being closed for months and even a year now, cities that rely on them to create revenue and attract tourists have struggled. Using secondary data analysis, we examined possible connections between COVID-19 data and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) of the hospitality industry using STR Trend Reports, COVID-19 county data, and theme park attendance. The beginning of the pandemic caused a drastic change in the way travelers experience theme parks that led to a significant initial decrease in almost all KPIs. Between March and December 2020, RevPAR, revenue, and demand had negative percent changes from 2019 in all major theme park cities. RevPAR had an average of -56.7% change in 2020. Revenue hit its lowest dip of 2020 at -85.08% in April with an overall average of -58.7% change from last year. Demand slowly increased as the year went on, but there were no significant increases or decreases based on the number of COVID-19 cases. This leads to the conclusion that the theme park industry had a significant negative impact, but travelers were comfortable visiting theme parks during the pandemic whether positive cases are on the rise or decline.

Funding:

Program/mechanism supporting research/creative efforts: an external internship or other type of program,