The TEA/AECOM Theme Index and Museum Index 2014 has been released, showing post-recession growth has been maintained in the theme park sector, while museum attendance has suffered a steep drop since 2013.

Visitors to theme parks globally grew 4 per cent in 2014, maintaining the same level of growth as in 2013.

Disney parks continue to dominate the top 10 most-visited theme parks, with Walt Disney World Florida's Magic Kingdom topping the charts and Tokyo Disneyland, Japan, in second. From an individual operator perspective, Universal had exceptional results this year with most parks expanding their attendance by double digits.

Both Universal Studios Japan and Universal Studios in Florida reported an increase in visitor numbers since 2013 by around 17 per cent — success no doubt due to the extremely popular Wizarding World of Harry Potter attractions.

All regions contributed to the theme park industry's "post-recession rebound", said AECOM’s senior vice president of economics, John Robinett.

“Asia will keep growing and raising the bar for quality and the Middle East is making a comeback," he added.

Merlin Entertainments registered a 5 per cent attendance increase across the board, keeping them second in the top 10 theme park groups worldwide. Walt Disney remains the top group, though attendance is only up 1.3 per cent year-on-year. Universal is third, while Chimelong Group and Songcheng Worldwide are new entries as the ninth and tenth theme park group respectively.

Meanwhile there was small attendance growth at the world’s leading museums with a 1.6 per cent increase. In 2013, attendance at the top 20 museums globally grew 7 per cent.

Robinett explained: “Museum attendance worldwide is very sensitive to the schedules of blockbuster travelling exhibitions.”

Visitors to waterparks globally grew around 3 per cent, compared with 7 per cent in 2013.

The TEA/AECOM Theme Index and Museum Index 2014 can be downloaded from AECOM at http://www.aecom.com/themeindex or from TEA at http://bit.ly/TEA_AECOM2014ThemeIndex.