Amusement parks: between climate change and uncertainty

BarcelonaMore heat, greater uncertainty, and technological changes. The broad amusement park sector, which encompasses everything from pure tourism companies to large industrial groups that manufacture roller coasters and arcade machines, looks to the future with these challenges in mind. It largely depends on economic and climate prosperity to survive. "We don't solve the world's problems, but we create very good memories," said Antonio Zamperla, CEO of the historic Italian attraction design company that bears his family name, regarding the sector's business.

The main companies in the sector operating in Europe met last week at the annual congress organized by IAAPA, the international industry association, at the Fira de Barcelona. The event received nearly 16,000 visitors and featured some 700 companies, according to the organizers.

As is usual at this type of congress, the companies conveyed a message of optimism that, in this case, was supported by facts. Some of the largest companies announced new attractions or new park openings, and executives were generally pleased with the progress the sector has made in recent years, a time when the entire leisure industry has had to recover from the severe setback of three years of pandemic, lockdowns, and minimal tourism.

The sector's positive outlook is uncertain, and there are some questions about how the business will evolve. In this sense, 2025 has been a more complicated year than previous years. Among the sectors' fears are, above all, the evolution of the economy and the growing uncertainty on a global scale. "Donald Trump isn't helping much; turmoil is not the norm," Zamperla said in a roundtable discussion at the IAATA congress.

Geopolitical tensions and the slow pace of growth in major European economies—Germany, the continent's driving force, has been in recession for almost three years—are causing lower growth and, therefore, families' salaries and job security to suffer. This means that in times of uncertainty, people are more cautious about spending money on amusement parks.

Despite the industry's fears, there are exceptions. One of them is the Catalan park PortAventura World. "The most difficult years have been the last few," said its CEO, Fernando Aldecoa, who emphasized that 2025 has been "really good, especially for the water park." In this regard, PortAventura is helped by having a fairly diversified model, combining pure tourism (with a dozen hotels) and three different parks: the original PortAventura, a water park, and the most recent, Ferrari Land, making it the second-largest leisure complex in Europe, surpassed only by 202.

The danger of climate change

From the outside, the amusement park business may seem to be based on attractions, whether they're slides with pools, roller coasters, or video game machines, but the reality is different: on average, 50% of park revenue comes from catering, according to industry data, although this varies greatly by country. "In Germany or the Netherlands, it's impossible not to offer food, while in the south of France, there's no problem selling only soft drinks," explained Édouard Malnoy, CEO of Hadrena, a French multinational founded in 2021 that manages amusement parks. indoor –that is, not outdoors– in several countries, including Spain.

"Location is key, because the market is increasingly competitive, and there are stronger companies," Malnoy added. In this regard, the region of the world in which a park is located can greatly influence its future success, especially due to the effects that climate change has on customers' consumption habits. According to Bloomberg In July, with the scorching heat wave that affected much of the United States last spring, attendance at the country's theme parks fell by 9.6%. However, according to Six Flags, the global giant in the sector, the drop exceeded 17%. It was simply too hot to spend the day strolling through a park.

The CEO of PortAventura rightly emphasized that climate change is one of the most important factors to consider. In the case of the Catalan park, it is worth considering that it is located on the Mediterranean coast, which is one of the regions in Europe where experts expect global warming to have the most serious impact, especially with regard to rising temperatures and changes in rainfall patterns.

According to Zamperla, two of the ingredients for the industry to thrive are "peace and good weather," which explains the concerns at a time of conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, trade and diplomatic tensions, and an increasingly crazy climate.

AI generates little enthusiasm

Another element the sector is considering for the immediate future is artificial intelligence. Despite the emergence of AI in many areas of the technology sector, the amusement park industry has yet to widely integrate it, and when it has, it has been in the business and management spheres, not as part of the attractions or as elements that directly affect the activities it claims to be used in the "back end" of the business, such as "finance or analytics."

According to Zamberla, his company has adopted AI primarily to "predict maintenance" for the attractions it designs at a time when "finding maintenance staff is a problem." Thus, the Italian executive foresees the sector moving toward "predictive attractions" whose maintenance adapts to what is needed at any given time, but his company does not use it in the development of new attractions.

For its part, Aldecoa asserted that AI is already "part of the culture" of companies because it is "embedded in the day-to-day" of the business. However, PortAventura World does not currently have any attractions where AI is part of the user experience.

In fact, Zamperla admitted that technological changes can disrupt the business model of many companies in the sector, but at the same time emphasizes that traditional parks still have a long way to go. "The rides are still a huge success," he commented, even though attraction designers are looking for ways to adapt to the emergence of new technologies.

Regarding this fact, the CEO of the Italian multinational foresees changes in the coming decades, especially to make the rides more "interactive" and "immersive" for visitors (in Catalonia, Zamperla designed Virtual Express, a virtual reality roller coaster at Tibidabo in Barcelona). "Children today interact with screens" from a young age, he recalled, which will force companies to move forward along this path, which he doesn't see as a bad thing: "Interactivity can bring families together; it's an area where we can be inclusive," he added.

And the casinos?

With all this, the IAAPA congress in Barcelona brought together companies from the leisure park sector, which includes amusement parks, water parks, theme parks, and recreational parks. But what was missing were companies from the gaming sector, such as casinos. Among the manufacturers were recreational machines—games in amusement centers—which areArcadian–, but not slot machines.

Therefore, in this environment, projects like the Hard Rock on the grounds of the Vila-seca and Salou Recreation and Tourism Centers didn't even come up in the conversations. Asked about the park's immediate future, the CEO of PortAventura didn't mention the possibility of Hard Rock becoming a reality. While it's true that Hard Rock and PortAventura are completely different companies and, therefore, CEOs should be cautious when talking about other companies, Aldecoa pointed out that the Catalan park's growth depends on "more hotels and more attractions."

He also expressed interest in the park's entertainment, specifically the shows offered, which are clearly geared toward a family audience. "Quality entertainment is key" for the future, Zamperla added.

However, among the new hotels it plans to open, Aldecoa raised in March in an interview in Tarragona Diary The possibility of one of the hotels in the Hard Rock gaming complex being taken over by PortAventura is being raised. The CEO of the Catalan theme park publicly expressed his support for the construction of the macrocasino in Salou because, in his opinion, it would help reduce the seasonality of tourism in the municipality. In fact, the Costa Daurada is still heavily dependent on the summer months, despite the park's efforts to extend the season with promotional campaigns during the fall (with Halloween) and the Christmas holidays.