By Jacob Passy and Ben Fritz

Step aside, Orlando. The Middle East is looking to cement itself as the new global theme-park hot spot.

Disney is the latest and biggest entertainment company to plant a flag in the region, as it said its seventh global theme park will be located in Abu Dhabi. The company behind "Frozen" and "Star Wars" is joining competitors including SeaWorld, Legoland and Six Flags in having a presence in the Middle East.

"This area of the world is one of the final frontiers" for the theme-park business, says Dennis Spiegel, an industry consultant.

The move stands in contrast to Disney's history of establishing theme park hubs ahead of competitors who then followed, such as in Orlando and Southern California.

Middle Eastern countries including the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia are looking to tourism as a way to diversify their oil-dependent economies. Their governments and business leaders are funneling billions of dollars into tourism megaprojects, essentially creating bustling hot spots in the middle of the desert.

The UAE's Tourism 2030 plan calls for drawing more than 39 million visitors by that year, up from around 24 million in 2023.

Developers in the region have sought out partnerships with Western brands to create cornerstones for these new tourism centers, says Tonya Pope, executive director of Quantum Creative Studios, a theme-park design company.

Yas Island, where the new Disneyland will be built by local company Miral, is already home to the sports-car theme park Ferrari World, a SeaWorld and Warner Bros. World Abu Dhabi. The island also has several sporting and concert venues, a golf course, a beach and a 2.5 million-square-foot shopping mall.

Saudi megaproject Qiddiya, which is under construction, is set to feature several theme parks. One of them -- a Six Flags park -- is expected to include the world's tallest roller coaster. Another is a park inspired by the Japanese anime series "Dragon Ball Z."

"They are looking for opportunities for their citizens to enjoy travel without leaving the Middle East," says Peter Weishar, director of the Themed Experience graduate program at the University of Central Florida. "So it makes perfect sense to put a park like Disney's there."

In 2022, themed attractions in the Middle East and parts of Africa generated $24.3 billion in revenue, according to a study released last year by the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions.

Building a park in Abu Dhabi will make Disney more accessible to "hundreds of millions in the world that are income-qualified, where a trip to one of our six locations was pretty lengthy in nature and expensive," Disney Chief Executive Bob Iger said on a quarterly earnings call with investors Wednesday. In addition to its resorts in California and Florida, Disney has parks in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Paris and Japan.

Existing theme parks in the Middle East draw a steady flow of international visitors, especially from India. Flights from major cities in India, such as Mumbai and New Delhi, to Abu Dhabi take less than four hours, putting it within easy reach of India's burgeoning middle class.

Abu Dhabi's significant distance from other Disney park locations should minimize the chances of cannibalizing their businesses, Spiegel said. Industry analysts have suggested that the opening of Shanghai Disneyland in 2016 came at the expense of Disney's park in Hong Kong. Shanghai Disneyland attracted 14 million visitors in 2023, according to a report from Aecom and the Themed Entertainment Association, compared with only 6.4 million for Hong Kong Disneyland.

Attempts to build theme parks in nearby Dubai haven't been as successful as those in Yas Island. A Universal Studios theme park once planned for the emirate never came to fruition. A Bollywood-themed amusement park closed in 2023, seven years after it first opened.

"It's not exactly an overnight success," Pope said of the region's theme-park business.

Constructing an amusement park in an area where temperatures can exceed 100 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer months and where sand from nearby deserts regularly blow through adds to the complexity. Disney has signaled that its park in Abu Dhabi will feature a mix of indoor and outdoor attractions. The Warner Bros. park on Yas Island is entirely indoors.

Cultural differences could be another challenge. When Disney has exported its theme-park model to markets such as France and Japan in the past, it has sought to tailor its attractions to meet local tastes, said Eddie Sotto, a former Imagineer, a member of the company's elite team of theme-park designers, who now consults with theme parks through his own design firm.

Given the diverse international cohort of visitors Disney can expect in Abu Dhabi, threading that needle will be critical, Sotto said. Disney has signaled that it will embrace the Middle East's appreciation of cutting-edge technology in developing the park.

"This will be the most technologically advanced of any park we've built, " Iger said in an interview. "It will not only fit into this region as it exists today, but be very forward-leaning as it grows and expands."

Write to Jacob Passy at jacob.passy@wsj.com and Ben Fritz at ben.fritz@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

Dennis Speigel is a theme-park industry consultant. "Disney Makes It Official: The Middle East Is the New Theme-Park Hot Spot," at 5:30 a.m. ET, misspelled his surname as Spiegel.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 08, 2025 13:31 ET (17:31 GMT)

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