Today’s attractions need to do more than look amazing, they need to evolve, adapt, and stay ahead of shifting guest expectations. In this episode, we explore the key trends shaping the global attractions industry in 2026 and what the data really tells us about where the market is heading. Andy Povey is joined by Melissa Oviedo, CEO of the TEA, along with Martin Palicki, Editor of InPark Magazine, and Edmund Chih, Director at Entertainment + Cultural Advisors, two of the key voices behind the TEA/AECOM Global Experience Index. They’re here to break down what’s rising, what’s stabilising, and what’s signalling major change for operators, developers, and experience creators around the world.
In this episode of Skip the Queue, Andy Povey is joined by Melissa Oviedo (TEA), Martin Palicki (InPark Magazine), and Ed Chih (ECA) to discuss the TEA Global Experience Index and trends shaping the attractions industry in 2026.
Key Topics Covered:
Show References:
Melissa Oviedo, Chief Executive Officer, Themed Entertainment Association (TEA)
Martin Palicki, Publisher of InPark Magazine
Edmond Chih, Director, Entertainment & Cultural Advisors (ECA)
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Andy Povey: Welcome to Skip the Queue, the podcast that tells the stories of the world's best visitor attractions and the amazing people who work in them. Brought to you by Merac. I'm your host, Andy Povey.
Today's attractions need to do more than look amazing. They need to evolve, adapt and stay ahead of shifting guest expectations. In this episode, we explore the key trends shaping the global attractions industry in 2026 and what the data really tells us about where the market's heading.
I'm joined by Melissa, who's chief exec of the TEA Martin, who's editor of in Park Magazine, and Edmond, who's director at Entertainment and Culture Advisors, two of the key voices behind the TEA Global Experience Index.
Together, they're here to break down what's rising, what's stabilising and what's seeing major change for operators, developers and experienced creators around the world. Let's get into it.
Andy Povey: We're going to talk about the TEA Global Experience Index. Before we get into that though, Melissa, I wonder if you could just give us a quick introduction about TEA and let us know what it's all about.
Melissa Oviedo: Sure. Thanks, Andy. So the TEA or Themed Entertainment Association started back in 1991 and it really is the association that represents the storyteller community. The storytellers, the creatives, the builders, the dreamers, the fabricators, the content developers, the technologists, the construction workers, everybody who takes a story from paper to reality. It can take form in many different formats from theme parks or attractions where themed entertainment really got its start, to museum environments that are telling cultural or heritage related stories, to zoos or aquariums, to location based entertainment, to IP driven experiences or cruise lines. As you can tell, it can really take a format across many different types of experiences. And really the TEA represents that creative to delivery community that works globally. Around the world we have a bets 1600 member companies represented in over 40 different countries.
Melissa Oviedo: So it's a global association that is all around connection and collaboration of how you deliver these experience to millions and millions of guests around the world every year.
Andy Povey: I've been to a couple of tea events here in London. We did one at Hyde Park Winter Wonderland two, three years ago. Great experience. If you're in the area and if you're near a tea event and I'll suggest you get down there, it's a really wonderfully welcoming and warm community.
Melissa Oviedo: Absolutely.
Andy Povey: Martin, can you just introduce yourself for our guests at home and let them know a little bit about your involvement?
Martin Palicki: Sure. So I am the founder and publisher of InPark Magazine. We're a trade publication for the industry. We focus on theme parks, water parks and museums and other visitor attractions. We work closely with the. With the TEA and kind of. For purposes of this chat, I have been editing the Global Experience Index in its various previous names for the past four years. And so I work with the researchers and with tea, coming up with the content, they provide the data and kind of the ideas. I help put it into words and make sure all the I's are dotted and the T's are crossed.
Andy Povey: Fantastic. And thank you. And Ed, what's your involvement in the.
Edmond Chih: Yeah, so I'm director at Entertainment and Culture Advisors and our firm. We specialise in business strategy and economic feasibility studies for the attractions industry. We work on projects globally even though we run work within a small team out of Los Angeles and Hong Kong. And for this year we're happy to be partnering with TEA as well as the PARC database, Martin and Storyland Studios to do the research. So we help to spearhead a lot of the research efforts for the data that's published in this report.
Andy Povey: Thank you. And for those of you who aren't aware, the TEA produces a report annually. Melissa. What? Get the name of the report right for me, please, because I keep messing this one up.
Melissa Oviedo: Yeah, no problem. It's the TEA Global Experience Index and the data represented in this year's release is from 2024 attendance and it really is a.
Andy Povey: It's a benchmark of attendance across the global industry.
Melissa Oviedo: Yeah, it is. And it really focuses on theme park, water park and museum environment in each of the various geographic regions around the world.
Andy Povey: Yeah, I was just looking at the report, as you would expect. Very pleased to see a couple of London museums in top 10 museums globally. So we have a little tradition on Skip the Queue that you might not have heard of. We are icebreaker question. So I get to choose a question, you don't get to hear anything about it at all. And my choice today is I've got twin girls and as a parent I'm told that I shouldn't choose my favourite. So I've got a difficult question for you. In all of the attractions that you know and love around the world, which attraction would you take your best friend to for the first time if you could only choose one? I'm going to start with you, Melissa.
Melissa Oviedo: Oh, that's such a good question. Because, you know, I've been so fortunate to see so many really interesting places around the world. I think I'm going to choose one of my most surprising ones. It surprised me because I didn't know much about the IP when I went there, but the immersion into the story was so significant. And that would be Ghibli park in Japan. It's a ground VIP from Ghibli Studio and I had the opportunity to visit there last January and I didn't know much about it, but the level of immersion and attention to detail in that experience was really something special.
Andy Povey: Great answer and quite a long answer as well, which is fantastic for Ed and Mark because they've had a little bit more time to think. Ed, where would you go? What would be your choice?
Edmond Chih: That's a tough one. Well, off the top of my head and through the net, this is fairly recent for me. I'm going to give a shout out to a local attraction that normally puts on a production around Halloween and extends for maybe about a month afterwards. It's called Delusion. I don't know if you know anybody outside of LA has heard of it, but it's essentially an immersive horror experience. And so every October I try to score tickets to go to this thing. And the concept and the production is different every year. A lot of times they change up the venue and it's very sort of high touch, very highly immersive, kind of creepy, very cool.
Edmond Chih: And yeah, if I ever have a best friend that wants something cool and unique and a little bit different and off the beaten path, that's where I would take them.
Andy Povey: Fantastic. You guys do that stuff so well, particularly in la. I was talking to a farm park owner and operator two, three weeks ago about that Halloween experience and he was describing how they just go out and build things out of pallets and the experience can change overnight from one day to the next. They find something that works, they'll expand it. If it doesn't work, they'll take it out, which is incredibly impressive, turning things around that quickly. Martin, what about you?
Martin Palicki: So my answer, actually this is perfect because this is so representative of the global Experience index, because we had Melissa picking something from the Asia APAC region. We had Ed kind of mentioning something from America as well. I picked a park in Europe, so the EMEA region. Those are the three kind of big regions of the index. So my favourite park that I would love to take someone that I care deeply about to is Efteling, a little tiny park in the Netherlands. And the reason that I love it is because it blends. First of all, it has a great history, right, as a family park, with storytelling that comes from, you know, a history of fairy tales in this beautiful forested area. And then they have these like wonderful, unique individual attractions that are highly themed.
Martin Palicki: I like that they don't always rely on the biggest ip, which I'm sure we'll talk about later on in this chat. And so it's a little refreshing to me that there's these wonderful stories that are being told and it's just a beautiful environment. Everybody's great that works there. You can tell they really care about the park. And I just love every time I'm over in the Netherlands, I make sure I hop on the train down there, go to Efteling.
Andy Povey: Yeah. It is a very special place and holds a very special place in people's hearts. I think I'm with you there, Martin, but I don't have to choose. I'm the host. Off we go. So, Melissa, since you stepped into your role as CEO at ta, you've been talking about transformative change and driving change across the organisation. What do you see as the biggest trends shaping visitor experience going into 2026 and how are tea going to respond?
Melissa Oviedo: Yeah, that's a great question, Andy. You know, you alluded to when I stepped into the role, I'm actually in a really unique position where as TEA's first CEO, I'm also the first leader of the organisation that came from our industry. My background is in theming and fabrication. Right. So I have a really unique view on our world, on our industry and kind of looking at where the trends are and then making sure the TEA is responding to those trends. One, we're seeing a lot of development within location based entertainment, specifically around IP integration. IPs really want the 360 degree brand immersion and what traditionally has always started as content first and location based entertainment as either a last step or the next step. We're seeing location based entertainment actually jump to the top of the step.
Melissa Oviedo: That connection to brand and connection to story, especially with single owner brands or IPs is really becoming a major conversation within the TEA community and then looking at how these are scaled in different regions of the world. Not every IP belongs directly into a theme park. So how do you start to immerse or develop your experience in other different types of formats in order to really understand the market? We're seeing cruise lines really blow themselves out of the water, right? I mean, how many ships are currently being built and shipyards around the world and are coming out as fast as we can? So we're seeing more competition in a sense of more experience driven opportunities. But the level of what the guest expectation is becoming higher and higher.
Melissa Oviedo: Our guests are becoming more educated and more understanding that a quality experience is what matters. So the TEA takes that very seriously. That's a lot of education around not only our current members, but folks that may not know this community exists. Going into and creating partnerships with groups like Licencing International, where we can take the stage collaboratively together to tell these licence and brands how to move into the world of themed entertainment or experience development. Really looking at how we can be an ultimate collaborator in our spaces. Again, educate, educate. And then making sure that we're putting out the right toolbox, the right toolkit to make sure that you have the right type of data to understand the market, the geographic regions and the audiences, such as the index that we do every year.
Andy Povey: So quite a lot.
Melissa Oviedo: It's been a busy year, Andy. It's been a busy year.
Andy Povey: I love the comments about ip. We recently did an event here in the UK at Traitors Live. I don't know whether. Do you get Traitors in the us?
Martin Palicki: I think so, yeah, yeah.
Andy Povey: So we've had lots of very positive feedback about that experience, but it's a four hour experience in a massive building in the centre of London. So, Martin, you've been covering the industry for a little while now, should we say, both as editor and publisher of vidpark. So what are you picking out from this year's report, which was your favourite bit to write?
Martin Palicki: I think this might not be very exciting for you, but I think one of the key takeaways from the report is really a continuation of a trend that this report has identified for years. And it's kind of just baked into the ethos of TEA and the report, and that is that parks that invest continuously in the experience, in new attractions, in expanding their offerings, are the ones that continuously perform the best, both in terms of attendance and financially as well. You know, this report doesn't specifically track financial results, but the researchers do look at those as well and where they get some of their data from. And so we have an idea that this trend, this concept of reinvestment is so important for parks to succeed continuously. And I think this year's report just reinforces that. I think operators hopefully know that.
Melissa Oviedo: And, you know, we just came off of this huge disruptive event of the pandemic and things are finally starting to get back to normal in terms of the attendance in parks, whatever normal is anymore. But that sort of truism has remained throughout this, that reinvestment is critical to success for Parks. So not a very sexy answer, but I think that is really a key takeaway from the report.
Andy Povey: Invest, Invest. Invest or innovate? Innovate. Innovate.
Martin Palicki:
I suppose that as well, definitely.
Andy Povey: The innovate doesn't necessarily need to have massive pound or dollar signs associated with. Obviously they help.
Martin Palicki: Yes.
Andy Povey: So, Ed, what's your takeaway from this year's report?
Edmond Chih: Sort of touches along the similar themes that Melissa and Marty mentioned. You know, competition for people's time, attention, especially in the form of entertainment, has never been fiercer. I mean, you have like social media, you have streaming services, you have online gambling, video games and that sort of thing. And you know, live experiences and attractions play an important role in that space. Right. And in order to sort of compete in that arena, a lot of the operators have had to, you know, level up their game, had to continue to innovate and evolve. And some of the things that the top performers do really well, they do like a combination of things. Like one or more of these things is, you know, they obsess over the guest journey.
Edmond Chih: Everything from the marketing to, you know, the point of sale, to the arrival to the entry, to the experience itself, to after the experience, to keeping people engaged. You know, you have to be able to excel in all aspects of that guest journey. And along a similar vein, they also lean into a lot of theming and storytelling of the attractions and the experiences that they provide. And it's the storytelling, the characters, the worlds and the narratives that can really generate a lot of that emotional resonance that I think guests find compelling and sort of memorable when going to an attraction and another one is looking for revenue beyond just admission. Right.
Edmond Chih: You know, there are opportunities to enhance the food and beverage, to enhance your retail offering, to more than just to slap a sticker or a brand name onto an item to produce unique merchandise that guests might find compelling and want to offer sort of premium tier or VIP experiences. So I think some of the leaders and our industry are really good at doing one or more of these things.
Andy Povey: Yeah, I agree completely. We went to the longest named attraction in the UK a few months ago with the Kids Warner Brothers Studio Tour London, the Making of Harry Potter. And they were almost more wowed by the gift shop than they were by the experience itself. I mean, it is a proper world class experience, but the gift shop. I winced as we came out the gift shop. So how is IP driven entertainment evolving? We've talked a lot about it. I've just mentioned Harry Potter. We talked, I mentioned Traitors earlier, how is it changing? What does that mean for operators?
Melissa Oviedo: You know, as you look at various IPs I talked about single brand IPs or multi brand IPs such as Warner Brothers has many brands that they can integrate into different experiences. Or single brand, something like Dr. Seuss and how that rolls itself out. Right. You know what it has done is it given, it's given us more platforms for integration and more platforms for experience driven entertainment. So in the past IPs were typically looked at as they would have to go into a theme park in some way.
Edmond Chih: Right.
Melissa Oviedo: And those are sometimes cost prohibitive, they're investment heavy. If you've never seen your IP outside of a screen, how does that resonate inside of a physical world? So there's all different types of ways to go about something like that. And now with again 360 brand building, where an IP doesn't just live in a consumer good or on in content, traditional streamed content, but it can live in a physical world that doesn't have to be your last step anymore. It could be one of your early steps and reintroducing maybe a nostalgia brand that we knew growing up that we're now introducing back to our kids and how that resonates with them in various formats or different environments.
Melissa Oviedo: I think the opportunity, you know, looking at something that just opened here in North America with Netflix houses that really, you know, they just opened I think in Philly last week and in Dallas next week, that is totally taking beloved TV shows and content that lives in your screen and immersing you and reconnecting the guests back to the story that can ultimately drive more content and more engagement on their traditional platform. So I think you're seeing more of those types of experiences that will continue to pop up and continue to integrate themselves. Ghibli park, like I mentioned in Japan, is another example of untraditional IP development in the physical world that you wouldn't expect that is done at an exceptional level.
Martin Palicki: Yeah, just one of the points that we really brought out in this year's index was how IP has played a larger role in the Asia Pacific region, particularly. It's certainly popular in the Americas, particularly North America, and it's been growing throughout Asia, particularly China in recent years. So that's like one key point, I think for ip. The other thing that I wanted to mention that is just sort of a, maybe a personal observation because at in park we have been covering IP for years and I've been going to the Licencing Expo shows For a while.
Martin Palicki: I really see the brands, many of the brands kind of approaching location based entertainment differently in the last just couple years because I think prior to, you know, a couple years ago, I think a lot of the brands really looked at entertainment as a way just to drive further retail sales of their product. And it was just kind of a thing to get people to buy more of their stuff. But I think there's been a shift and many of those brands are realising that the experiences themselves have incredible value and to be able to let their customers, their fans, step into the world of their creation. That was a little quote from Willy Wonka, unexpectedly.
Martin Palicki: So stepping into the world of their creation and really experience, it has value in itself and it reinforces the brand, like Melissa said, but also can be a revenue stream for the brands beyond just pushing people back into retail. And I think that's good news not only for guests having higher quality experiences, but also for our industry because it allows the creative companies and vendors within our community to really shine and do the best that they can do to create those experiences for guests.
Andy Povey: Very interesting, Martin, and thank you for picking that up. Ed, have you got anything to add to that?
Edmond Chih: Just wanted to echo what Marty and Melissa have said. I mean, there's sort of this deeper and earlier collaboration with IP holders now that operators and owners and operators have as IP holders realise that there's a lot of value in creating these compelling experiences for guests, more than just sort of putting their names onto things and selling a little bit more retail. And that it's important to sort of encourage interaction with their brands and ip not just to offer these sort of passive experiences. You know, you want guests to allow guests to take part in those, the stories and play a role in the world that a lot of these IPs have.
Andy Povey: Yeah, it's that whole immersive community, isn't it? Immersive, that's such a badly, such an overused word. But it's that community engaging with the brand, isn't it? Bringing it to life? So what role are we seeing or anticipating technology and immersive storytelling having in shaping attractions for 26?
Melissa Oviedo: You know, technology is at the forefront of innovation. It's a level of, you know, how immersive or how innovative or tech forward do you actually want the experience to be? And how does that experience follow you even once you're home? And you can continue the journey or the connection back to the experience or to the brand that you're working with, but we're also seeing a little Bit of a trend of simplification.
Andy Povey: Interesting.
Melissa Oviedo: Yeah, it's really interesting. You know, and museums actually do this really well where you can have a very tech forward experience or exhibit that can really connect you back to the story and then you can go into the next exhibit and have a very mechanical, simplified experience as well. Children's museums do this phenomenally. So how do you not just stay connected to your device but how do you fully immerse yourself into the experience that you want to be in? And one of the other things that we see is that people want to experience things together. You, you go to theme parks or museums or any type of attraction and you go with your friends or your family or the people that you care about so they want to experience these things together.
Melissa Oviedo: So having a singular experience and a device versus an experience where you can utilise tech to be more personalised to who you are and to what you what you like to consume, I think is really where you're going to start to see a big heavy trend now.
Andy Povey: I love that analogy about getting away from your device. We had an attraction here in the UK or a group of attractions, did some augmented reality with the Gruffalo and you could stand your child next to the tree stump and hold up your phone and on your phone it would superimpose the Gruffalo standing next to your child.
Melissa Oviedo: Yeah, that's pretty cool.
Andy Povey: Great experience for the parent. Lovely keepsake. However, the child's second dad's on his phone again. It's a very fine line, isn't it? A very fine line, yeah. So Martin, what's the in arc view on the role of technology and immersive storytelling for 26?
Martin Palicki: Sure. So the one thing that I wanted to add is something that we certainly talk about in the Global Experience Index and has been one of these kind of meta trends over the years. And also an in park that we discuss is this kind of trickle down effective technology making more complicated, expensive technologies accessible to smaller parks and attractions and museums. So for example, Soren, the first sort of flying theatre built a quarter century ago for Disney, which was really cost prohibitive for anybody but Disney to build at that time. The technology has evolved and the price has come down so that now, you know, single attractions like I live in Wisconsin, I'm close to the Wisconsin Dells. There's the Wilderness Resort, which is an indoor water park resort. They have a flying theatre as part of the attractions they offer.
Martin Palicki:
You know, Europa park in Europe has a flying theatre and has had one for several years. So I think that sort of trickle down of technology making the larger attractions that only the big parks used to be able to build will continue to become more accessible to smaller parks and attractions. And I think we're certainly going to see that continuing into 2026 and beyond.
Andy Povey: Very good. Ed, do you have anything you'd like to add?
Edmond Chih: Yeah, I mean, I think as we touched on earlier, given how fierce the competition is for people's time and attention and dollars, one thing technology does really well or can do really well is reduce the friction for the consumer, right. To be able to engage them, you know, before they arrive at an attraction, while they're at the attraction, after their visit to attraction, you know, you can do things like virtual queuing, you can communicate with the guests, you know, continue to engage with them and, you know, personalise their experiences. And so these are things that are very important to, you know, keep a guest engaged. And you want to do it in a way that sort of makes it such that technology is in service of the experience versus the other way around. Right.
Edmond Chih: And so, you know, an operator and owner can certainly overdo the amount of technology that's employed. And so you want to be cognizant of that. And that's on the guest side. And I would say on sort of the back of house side, you know, technology is, you know, we live in a data driven world, right. And I think a lot of the more sophisticated operators, they're able to collect reams and reams of data. Now you're not just getting guest sort of sentiment or satisfaction surveys on a once a month or once a week basis. You can get, on a daily basis, you can create spatial heat maps for your parks to identify which areas of the park are overloaded at what part of the day. You can probably identify per caps. Right. And how they change by zone, by time, by season.
Edmond Chih: And so a lot of this data is very helpful in crafting and shaping the design and the operations of an attraction.
Andy Povey: Yeah, we're seeing an awful lot of activity around that space right now. It's interesting you say personalisation, Ed. I was at an event a few weeks ago with a where an. A large attraction in the north of Ireland. The Book of Kells were talking about having implemented personalisation on their website, the very low level, but picking up what they knew about the guest when they arrived on the website and that almost doubled their online conversion rate. I think that's the next big untapped area in the world that I exist in, which is ticket sales and ecommerce. I was also interested. You mentioned storytelling. We had a session a couple of weeks ago with people from BBC Science Studios and Moonraker VFX who are coming together to take the. The storytelling element of the BBC and bring it into partnership with the technology.
Andy Povey: I think we underestimate, or we can sometimes underestimate the value of the story. It's very important. Slightly different tech now. We all see the generative AI and then you hear the horror stories about how much CO2 is emitted by every ChatGPT search and all that kind of stuff. So sustainability is obviously very important. How are attraction operators going to balance or how can they balance creating the wow moment with the commercial requirements of that wow moment and with actually the sustainability of that.
Melissa Oviedo: Well, just the fact that this is even a conversation takes us above and beyond where we've been in the past. Right. So the word of sustainability and how you create a sustainable attraction, a sustainable experience, if you can design it into the experience at the very beginning, it is a lot easier than trying to retrofit it at the end. So keeping it as part of the dialogue, keeping sustainability as top of mind, being thoughtful about choices. There are some things that are difficult to create, but there's other things that are quite simple to think about. How you're using your water system. Actually, Efteling is doing this on a wonderful level. And Marta, you might even know more about it.
Melissa Oviedo: But Efteling is really setting a standard across Europe of how to create sustainable attraction experiences without having to compromise on the thrill factor, because it's being designed and it's part of the conversation from the very beginning of the development.
Martin Palicki: You're absolutely right. You stole my example, Melissa. No, but they're a great example and they've been doing it for years. We've been talking about it in the index for years as well. So all I can say is Melissa's 100% right.
Andy Povey: We had a session just after IAAPA Europe with the head of sustainability for Portaventura and they're almost carbon neutral. I think they are actually carbon neutral now, so it's not impossible.
Martin Palicki: Yeah, they're another great example as well. And I will say, I think. I don't know if we want to argue at all much here, but I think Europe is certainly that's a core principle for many parks in Europe. I'm not sure that a lot of facilities in the rest of the world hold sustainability to as high a degree of importance as European parks. I certainly wish they would, but I. I don't Know, I sort of feel like a lot of places give lip service to sustainability but don't necessarily do much about it. And. And I guess I like again, controversial opinion. I feel like globally we've kind of given up on sustainability, like at least in the United States and in other parts of the world where we're just sort of like, you know, global warming, whatever. And again, that's not my opinion personally.
Martin Palicki: Those are not reflect my opinion but. But I wish we could do more. I wish as a globe we did more and I think there are to try and like turn this frown upside down. I think the parks in Europe are great examples of how to do that successfully. And like Melissa said, bake it in from the design and you will be successful in the long term.
Andy Povey: Yeah, very much so. Your comment about us losing attention or losing focus on this is quite telling at the moment.
Martin Palicki: It's too bad because it's such an important issue.
Andy Povey: So Ed, the question is specific to your discipline, I suppose. If I were a massive investor with lots of money to spend on owning a new attraction, where in the world should I go?
Edmond Chih: That's a big question. Taking a step back, traditionally markets like North America, Western Europe and Japan, we would consider them to be mature markets in terms of theme park industry. Right. You're not going to see a whole lot of development, although, you know, we have Epic universe that just opened in over in Orlando and then we have a upcoming universal theme park over in the uk. So they're not stagnant by any means, but just in terms of growth rates, you're not going to see as big of a growth in those markets. China continues to grow and it's sort of reaching that sort of mature stabilisation phase, but there's still a lot of opportunity in that region. More broadly in apac, we see a lot of growth opportunities in Southeast Asia, so there's activity that we see in Singapore and Malaysia.
Edmond Chih: Vietnam is a market that's creating a lot of stir and buzz that we see a lot of interest and activity we within the Middle East. The Middle east continues to be active, you know, KSA in the past several years. Lots of development interest there and you know, capital flows. And the UAE specifically in Abu Dhabi, a lot of development interest there. India continues to be a market of interest, although, you know, India does have some constraints there just in terms of income, but in terms of know, population. Huge market. Huge market. And so that's a market to, to keep an eye on for the next several years to see how that develops and how they move up the attraction development curve.
Edmond Chih: And so I, I don't know if there's a, you know, a single market that I would say that to necessarily focus on. I think, you know, deciding on what your product is and what that concept is and, you know, how much you're willing to invest in and the scale of it. I think that'll sort of be a big part of the influence of what sort of markets that you might want to filter down to.
Andy Povey: What's your view or what are we hearing in the report about Eastern Europe?
Edmond Chih: Yeah, no, that's one that I failed to mention. So Eastern Europe also continues to be a growth market as well. Energylandia is a new entrant into the top theme park list. And so that's a market that continues to be of interest to us as we see considerable growth and consumer participation and demand.
Andy Povey: And so similar question to you, Melissa, but let's make it a TEA question. So which of your regions is seeing the biggest growth in membership right now?
Melissa Oviedo: Really? We're seeing a lot of growth from a membership standpoint in the Asia Pacific region. TE is very well known in North America and in particular in Europe. In the UK and frankly brands and the Netherlands, we have strong division support. So TEA is separated out into geographic regions or what we call divisions that supports our events and our networking opportunities. And Europe and North America has had a quite a presence there since really the very beginning, since 1991. APAC is our biggest opportunity. As the TEA brand continues to grow and to evolve. We see a lot of activity in that region of the world. They just don't know who we are. So how we elevate our brand inside of those regions and not just elevating the TEA brand. When we elevate the brand, we elevate the members.
Melissa Oviedo: That's the key thing to constantly remember is that we want to make sure that the brand is significant so they know that this is the member community that can actually deliver on these investments or experiences or developments that are on their dockets to continue to invest in. The other region is latam. LATAM is growing. LATAM is a region of the world that already has some spectacular experiences and theme parks and attractions that are there. But I think you're seeing even more development happening and that community is starting to really engage within the tdn.
Andy Povey: So bringing this all to a close, sort of final question, final thought, what would be your one key takeaway from this year's data for anybody who's playing in attraction in 26, 27, I'll let.
Melissa Oviedo: Ed start as the research expert.
Edmond Chih: Yeah, it's a big question. You know, I would say, you know, as a whole that the industry continues to grow and thrive, you know, in the face of all the competition, which is very encouraging. And that if you have a wonderful idea or vision that you think will delight customers to lean into that. Right. And I think just to add one more thought to that, given the. There are some economic considerations. Right. And so you have to keep in mind rising costs in terms of construction and staffing and marketing.
Edmond Chih: And so if capacity and throughput might be a constraint and you have to be conscious of costs maybe to design to get high value visitors, those that can generate high per caps depending on your business model, if this is going to be more of a high volume play versus something of a more moderate scale.
Andy Povey: Yeah, that's an interesting point. I was at a conference here in the UK a few weeks ago where they were talking about the. The high value or hyper cap end of the market doesn't appear to be as affected. So the people are spending 35 pounds $50 on a marmalade sandwich when they go and watch Paddington. The highest value seats are always the ones to sell out first.
Edmond Chih: Yeah. There's talk about sort of like we're entering a K shaped economy, right. Where there's a bit of a bifurcation between those that have the means and the resources to sort of participate in these various experiences and those who are being priced out of it.
Andy Povey: So, Melissa, Ed's last comment wasn't a particularly sunny one. Can you lift the meat a little?
Melissa Oviedo: I'll share. Quality matters. The guest is more educated over what deems as excellent and what deems as, you know, good and what deems as not good. Right. They know the difference. They're willing to pay and they're willing to make the investment of time and effort into going to experiences of quality and that of that kind of family connection or connection back to the unit that you're experiencing it with. We're competing with a lot of different things now. And so making sure that when you are developing something that it is rooted in story and that it is a quality experience so value is perceived is really, really important. And how people see value can be scaled to high end experiences all the way down to an entry ticket to be in the environment.
Melissa Oviedo: So I would say experience matters, quality matters, and making sure that you stay true to your story. So what that end result is still core to what you represent is going to remain very important.
Andy Povey: Love it. Thank you. Experience and quality. Martin, what are your thoughts?
Martin Palicki: I just have to say that I think the biggest takeaway for me every year, but especially this year, is just how valuable this resource is for our community and for the industry as a whole. I mean, the amount of work that ECA and the PARC database and TEA and storyline studios, who did the graphic design and layout for the report, for the index, it's a huge amount of work and there is so much information that is brought in, calculated, crunched. I help put it into words. And this report, this index is freely available to anyone. You just go to the TEA website. You have to like put your name in and then you can download the report for free. You can access prior year's reports.
Martin Palicki: So, you know, Andy, a few minutes ago you asked, someone has a big chunk of change and they want to build a park. You asked, said what to do, what should they do? I think they should go download the report first and get this information so that they can make intelligent decisions. And certainly they should work with feasibility and economics companies like ECA to make decisions. But again, this report is available to everyone. It's freely available. It is such a treasure trove of data. I know we're going to be starting working on the 2025 numbers very soon. So the history of this report is amazing. It's available, use it, learn from it. And yeah, that's my little soapbox about the Global Experience Index.
Andy Povey: Very useful, Martin. I'll make sure that we put a link to the report page in the show notes. That'd be great listeners. It's a great resource. Nothing else. It's just an interesting read. Go and get your hands on a copy, Martin. Ed, Melissa, thank you very much for your time. I'm looking out your windows at sunshine and looking out of mine at rain and wind and glum things in London. So you brought sunshine to my home today. Thank you very much for your time and I'm sure I'll see you soon.
Melissa Oviedo: Thank you.
Martin Palicki: Thank you, Andy.
Edmond Chih: Thanks so much.
Martin Palicki: This was fun.
Andy Povey: Thank you to Martin, Melissa and Edmond for joining me on today's episode. This episode was written by Sami Entwistle, edited by Steve Folland and produced by Emily Burrows and Sami Entwistle from Plaster as when as Wenalyn from Skip the Queue HQ.
If you enjoyed today's episode, please like, share and even comment on the episode in your podcast app. It all helps to spread the world about us and the amazing attractions we work with if you'd like to download the Tea Global Index report, head over to the Show Note for the links.
Be sure to visit SkiptheQue.fm for this episode's transformation descriptions and listen to the rest of the season so far. Once again, thank you for listening. I've been your host, Andy Povey. See you next time.