DXB Entertainments, operator of Dubai Parks and Resorts, has revealed that close to 2.3 million visits were made in 2017, buoyed by a strong finish to the year.

Though individual figures are not provided for the three main theme parks at the integrated resort – Legoland Dubai, Bollywood Parks and Motiongate movie park – that means an annual average attendance of less than 800,000. Numbers increased significantly in the fourth quarter of the year, when 796,000 visits were recorded across the resort, a 66% leap compared the the previous quarter. It is not known how many came just to visit the Riverland dining and retail district.

The December holiday period is reported as delivering peak daily and monthly visitation, with an average of over 20,000 visits in the last 10 days of the month. On the busiest days, there were almost 27,000 people spread throughout the resort, surpassing the previous daily record achieved during the DPR Big Day Out in September.

Opened in phases from late 2016, all rides and attractions within each of the Dubai Parks and Resorts properties, which also includes Legoland Water Park, were fully open to the public during the fourth quarter of 2017. This, combined with “targeted activations”, enhanced marketing efforts and attractive resident, tourist and annual pass pricing resulted in the stronger fourth quarter performance.

Bollywood Parks

Mohamed Almulla, CEO and managing director of DXB Entertainments, notes that the fourth quarter delivered the resort’s highest visitation to date. This, he says, “is “a clear sign of progress against our strategic plan and a reflection of the new pricing and marketing strategy implemented in September last year. Our key visitation periods will continue to be the cooler months of the first and fourth quarters of each year and therefore we remain optimistic that the positive trends in final months of 2017 will continue into the first quarter of 2018.”

Meanwhile DXB has announced an operational restructuring of the company, combining the Theme Parks and Retail & Hospitality divisions that were separated earlier in 2017. Ahmad Hussain, previously general manager of Theme Parks, has been appointed deputy CEO, whilst former GM of Retail & Hospitality Ahmed AlRayyes is now chief commercial officer.

In November, DXB received approval at the general assembly of its shareholders to draw down AED 455 ($124m) million under a subordinated loan facility from Meraas, taking total funding received under the facility to AED 700 million. In addition, the group has received support from its financing partners, specifically in regards to financial testing due at the end of 2017.