Merlin Entertainments, UK-based owner of Legoland, Alton Towers and The London Dungeon, has reported a 37 per cent increase in revenue during 2008.

In its first full year results since the acquisitions of Gardaland and The Tussauds Group, the company said that visitor numbers continued to increase by 28 per cent compared with the previous year, despite poor weather conditions and the economic downturn. The 2008 results also revealed the eighth successive year of EBITDA growth for Merlin, which has now seen an average 130 per cent annual increase in profits over the last three years, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers's latest Profit Track 100 figures.

Nick Varney, chief executive of Merlin Entertainments, said: "We are very encouraged by these results, and by the fact that a large proportion of our growth in 2008 was driven by like-for-like trading in our existing parks and attractions. "Merlin’s real success lies in our ability to maximise organic growth within the business through planned investment in all our sites combined with high levels of customer service. This is demonstrated for example in the significant improvement in performance in both revenue and visitor numbers of attractions like Alton Towers and Chessington World of Adventures."

The company is now set to expand into Portugal this summer with the opening of a Sea Life centre in Porto, while Madam Tussauds is due to open in Hollywood, US, in August. Merlin is also planning further expansion into the US and Asia in an attempt to build on encouraging early results for 2009.