Wild Wadi named world's fastest-growing water park

Jumeirah’s Wild Wadi in Dubai was the world's fastest-growing water park in 2011 according to the new Global Attractions Attendance Report from Themed Entertainment Association.

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE LIST OF THE WORLD'S TOP 20 WATER PARKS BASED ON VISITOR NUMBERS

Overall, the water park was named as the 13th most attended water park in the world with 890,000 visitors, behind Aquaventure at Atlantis The Palm Dubai at number eight with 1.2 million visitors. These were the only two parks in the Middle East to make it onto the  world’s top 20 water parks 2011 ranking.

Wild Wadi was also ranked as third fastest growing of all of the water parks and theme parks listed, which included separate top 20 lists for Europe, Asia-Pacific and the Americas. This was behind Changzhoud Dinosaur Park in China, which grew 52.2% to 3.5 million visitors, and Universal Studios Singapore, which grew 70.6% but did not fully open until May 2011.

John Robinett, senior vice president of economics at AECOM, which carried out the research, said: “The high growth operators focused on a three-fold strategy of park acquisition, park expansions, and new park development, which expanded their market share in what were, in many cases, modest growth markets”.