A statue of Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse stands in a backyard in entrance of Cinderella’s Citadel on the Magic Kingdom Park at Walt Disney World on April 3, 2025, in Orlando, Florida.
Gary Hershorn | Corbis Information | Getty Photographs
For many years Disney’s home theme parks have been the expansion engine for tourism, job creation and tax income in Southern California and Central Florida.
On Thursday, the corporate revealed its wider affect on the U.S. — reporting a nationwide financial affect of $67 billion annually.
“Disney defines the themed leisure enterprise in America, and our presence is felt throughout the nation,” mentioned Josh D’Amaro, chairman of Disney Experiences, in a release. “Our locations create economies far past the gates of our parks, and once we spend money on the groundbreaking experiences that solely Disney can ship, development follows.”
The new report comes from economists at Tourism Economics, an Oxford Economics firm, which mixed knowledge collected about Disneyland’s affect in California and Walt Disney World Resort’s affect in Florida in addition to further nationwide spending spurred by the corporate.
Disney’s financial affect report arrives on the heels of its announcement of a new theme park development in Abu Dhabi and the opening of rival Universal’s Epic Universe in Florida. It additionally follows a current bout of scrutiny over the company’s ticket prices, which some critics say have priced out potential parkgoers.
The corporate checked out direct financial affect, together with onsite spending at Disney parks in addition to spending domestically on issues like eating places, motels and transportation, in addition to oblique impacts like items and companies which are bought from native companies to assist the parks. The research additionally took into consideration what it known as induced impacts, which means largely what Disney’s workers spend their very own paychecks on.
Tourism Economics decided that Walt Disney World Resort had a $40 billion financial affect throughout the state of Florida in fiscal 12 months 2022, Disneyland Resort had a $16 billion affect on Southern California in fiscal 12 months 2023, and mixed the parks quantity to a $10 billion annual financial affect on the remainder of the nation.
“With a nationwide affect of almost $67 billion, Disneyland Resort and Walt Disney World are key financial engines, not solely of their respective regional economies, but additionally within the nationwide financial system,” mentioned Michael Mariano, head of financial improvement with Tourism Economics and Oxford Economics.
The report additionally decided that Disney helps greater than 400,000 jobs domestically, noting that 1 out of each 20 jobs in Orange County, California, and 1 out of each 8 jobs in Central Florida may be attributed to the corporate.
“A technique I typically take into consideration these research is that we’re making an attempt to measure what can be misplaced within the absence of those sights and the quite a few actions related to the sights,” Mariano mentioned.
“So a technique of these outcomes is what we’d lose if we did not have Disneyland Resort inside the Southern California area and Walt Disney World Resort inside the state of Florida?”
Disney has extra growth plans, with $30 billion in home capital expenditures anticipated by 2033.
This consists of the largest-ever growth of the Magic Kingdom, together with a revamped part of Frontierland and new land themed round Disney’s villains. A brand new tropical Americas land is coming to Animal Kingdom, that includes sights primarily based on “Encanto” and the Indiana Jones franchise. And Hollywood Studios is getting a “Monsters Inc.” land.
Over in California, Avengers Campus at California Journey is ready to double in dimension and sights primarily based on “Coco” and “Avatar” are deliberate for Disneyland.
Disclosure: Comcast is the guardian firm of NBCUniversal and CNBC.