Amusement and Theme Parks (United States)

NAICS 2022 code 71311 — an industry level of the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS), the U.S. government's standard for grouping businesses. This is a short rollup page. Because 71311 contains only one child industry, 713110, the two are effectively the same thing — read the 713110 primer for the full detail.

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1. Overview

Amusement and theme parks are permanent, fixed-site attractions that charge admission to ride mechanical rides, watch shows, and buy food and merchandise on the property. The U.S. business ranges from a handful of national "destination" resorts that draw travelers from around the world (Walt Disney World, Universal Orlando, Disneyland) to regional parks that serve a drive-in crowd within a few hours (Six Flags, United Parks' SeaWorld and Busch Gardens), down to small local and seasonal parks.

This is a consumer-discretionary business — people spend on it when they feel they can — with real pricing power, valuable land, hard-to-replicate intellectual property (IP: the characters, films and brands that fill a park), and very high barriers to entry. The flip side is heavy capital spending, sensitivity to the economy and the weather, and permanent safety-and-liability exposure. See the 713110 primer for how those economics play out in full.

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2. What's inside — and why this level equals its one child

NAICS is a nested hierarchy: broad sectors at the top narrow down to detailed national industries at the bottom (the 6-digit codes). The industry level 71311 sits one step above the national industry 713110.

• 71311 — Amusement and Theme Parks (this page, a 5-digit NAICS industry)
• 713110 — Amusement and Theme Parks (its single 6-digit national industry)

When a NAICS industry has only one national industry beneath it, the U.S. did not split the category any finer — there was no meaningful sub-distinction to draw. So 71311 and 713110 cover exactly the same establishments, the same firms, and the same revenue. The scope, the exclusions (arcades and family entertainment centers → 713120; carnivals and traveling rides → 7113/713990; casinos → 7132; on-property hotels, restaurants and shops → their own codes), the ownership mix, and the competitive picture are identical. This page exists only to give the rollup its own official statistics and to hand you off to the detailed child primer.

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3. Size (this level's figures)

Core U.S. statistics for NAICS 71311, from our ground-truth federal data. Because 713110 is the only child, these figures are one and the same as the child industry's. The years and measures differ, so they should not be summed into a single market-size number.

What the concentration numbers say: the top four firms take about three-quarters of all receipts, and the top eight take 86.5%. The HHI (a standard concentration gauge — the sum of each firm's squared market share; ~1,850 sits at the high end of "moderately concentrated") confirms a top-heavy, oligopolistic (a-few-firms-dominate) national industry — though not a monopoly in each local market, where a visitor may still have several parks to choose from.

Undercount caveats (same as the child):

1. Employment is a seasonal trough, not the peak. CBP counts jobs in the pay period including March 12 — the off-season for most seasonal parks. Summer-peak headcount, swollen by part-time, student and H-2B seasonal workers, is far higher, so 161,508 is a floor, not a typical-day figure.
2. The counts are an employer-business snapshot. CBP and the Economic Census exclude nonemployer businesses, self-employment, and most government-owned parks [3], so small seasonal operators and municipal parks are under-represented.
3. Receipts capture only the "amusement" slice, not the whole resort. The $19.17 billion Economic Census figure is well below private market-research estimates (roughly $25–29 billion for 2025) and far below the broader attractions economy that trade group IAAPA (International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions) sizes at about $52.8 billion in direct U.S. revenue [4][5]. Integrated resorts book hotel, restaurant, retail and cruise revenue under other NAICS codes — for scale, Disney's Experiences segment alone reported $34.2 billion in fiscal-2024 revenue [6], more than the entire 71311 receipts line.

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4. Investable universe (where value concentrates)

Because 71311 is a single-child industry, all of the value concentrates exactly where the 713110 primer lays it out. There are four distinct ways to get exposure, and they are not the same bet:

• Pure-play public operators — Six Flags Entertainment (NYSE: FUN) and United Parks & Resorts (NYSE: PRKS) — where parks are the company.
• Diversified public parents — The Walt Disney Company (NYSE: DIS) and Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA) — where world-class parks are one segment of a media/telecom empire (Experiences is Disney's biggest profit engine).
• Public real estate — EPR Properties (NYSE: EPR), an experiential net-lease real estate investment trust (REIT) that owns park land and collects rent, typically paid as a monthly dividend.
• Private ownership — family- and private-equity-controlled platforms (Herschend/Dollywood, Hershey Entertainment/Hersheypark, the Blackstone-KIRKBI-CPPIB-controlled Merlin/Legoland) and the park real estate itself, most of which never trades publicly.

See section 4 of the child primer for company-by-company scale, ownership and the private roll-up detail.

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5. How the money works

Park economics reduce to one identity, unchanged at this level:

Revenue ≈ Attendance × Per-Capita Spending ("per-caps") + out-of-park revenue

Attendance is bodies through the gate; per-caps is average dollars per guest, split between the ticket and in-park spending (food, drink, merchandise, line-skip passes). Season passes are the flywheel — they convert one-time visitors into repeat guests and show up as deferred revenue (cash collected now, recognized as guests visit), a leading indicator of the coming season. Operating leverage is extreme: land, rides and core staff are largely fixed costs, so each extra guest is high-margin — and a bad-weather stretch drops straight to the bottom line. The price of that flywheel is capital intensity (a continuous capex cycle of new coasters and "lands"), and the land itself is a hidden asset operators can monetize via sale-leaseback. The child primer works through per-cap figures, margins and the capex cycle in detail.

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6. Demand drivers

Identical to the child: consumer discretionary spending and confidence (a park trip is a want, not a need); new attractions (the main organic growth lever); intellectual property (beloved characters and franchises are the moat); tourism and travel (destination parks depend on it, Orlando above all); the calendar and the weather (seasonality is severe — Six Flags books roughly 70% of attendance in the second and third quarters, and rising heat threatens peak-season operating days); price/value perception; and competition for leisure time and wallet from streaming, gaming, sports and dining. Full treatment in section 6 of the 713110 primer.

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7. Regulation

There is no single federal safety regulator for fixed-site parks — a well-known feature of the U.S. system. The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) regulates mobile/portable carnival rides but, since a 1981 amendment, not permanent fixed-site parks (the "roller-coaster loophole"). Oversight of permanent parks is left to the states — roughly 44 run their own inspection programs — often adopting ASTM International consensus safety standards (Committee F24) by reference. Federal workplace-safety rules (OSHA), the Americans with Disabilities Act, food-and-water codes, seasonal/H-2B labor law, and — for marine parks — the Animal Welfare Act also bind operators. The regulatory economics here are safety-and-liability, not utility rate base or REIT accounting; the child primer covers the patchwork in full.

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8. Consolidation

The market has two tiers that barely compete: destination resorts (Disney, Universal) and regional parks (day trips). Consolidation is reshaping the regional tier: Cedar Fair and Six Flags merged on July 1, 2024 into a single 42-park operator; Herschend rolled up Palace Entertainment's U.S. parks and Silverwood (2025) into a large private challenger; financial buyers (Blackstone, KIRKBI, CPPIB) own Legoland-parent Merlin; and EPR Properties buys and leases back park real estate. Barriers to entry — scarce land, billions in upfront capital, long timelines, IP and brand — are formidable, so competition happens through capex and pricing, not new entrants. This drives the high concentration the section-3 figures show. Detail in section 8 of the 713110 primer.

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9. Risks

The same risk set as the child industry: economic cyclicality (discretionary demand falls in recessions); weather and climate; capital intensity and leverage (Six Flags posted a $1.60 billion net loss in 2025, driven mostly by a $1.5 billion non-cash goodwill impairment tied to the merger); safety and liability (a permanent tail risk); seasonal-labor cost and availability; a pricing ceiling / attendance saturation after years of increases; tourism shocks (pandemics, a strong dollar, airfare spikes); brand and IP royalty costs; animal-welfare activism at marine parks; and data limitations (federal statistics omit some government, nonemployer and adjacent activity, so the industry looks smaller in the official data than in the lived economy). See section 9 of the child primer.

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10. How to invest, and the outlook

Public-market routes separate four distinct exposures: pure-plays (FUN, PRKS) for leveraged, attendance-and-per-cap-driven operating leverage; diversified giants (DIS, CMCSA) for best-in-class parks inside a media/telecom conglomerate; and the real estate (EPR) for rent-stream income. For any public route, normalize for seasonality, deferred season-pass revenue, maintenance capex, leases and net debt, and compare attendance and per-guest-spending trends before leaning on EBITDA multiples or dividend yield. Private routes run through private-equity and family ownership, sale-leaseback real-estate deals, park-adjacent suppliers, and local parks that occasionally change hands.

Outlook: the long-run case rests on durable moats — irreplaceable land and location, IP and brands, repeat visitation, and high entry barriers — funding steady pricing power and rising spend-per-guest. The near-term case is more mixed: a heavy capex cycle, cyclical and weather-exposed demand, and real balance-sheet risk at the leveraged regional operators. The opportunity is selective — the strongest assets can compound cash flow, while highly leveraged or underinvested parks can destroy value even in a healthy demand environment. Full how-to-invest detail, near-term drivers to watch, and the underwriting checklist are in section 10 of the 713110 primer.

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Sources

Drawn from the child primer (713110), which carries the full source list.

1. U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns 2023 (NAICS 713110/71311: establishments, employment, payroll). https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/cbp.html
2. U.S. Census Bureau, 2022 Economic Census — Concentration by Largest Firms (firms, receipts, CR4/CR8/CR20/CR50, HHI). https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/economic-census.html
3. U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns Methodology (excludes nonemployers, self-employment, most government), 2025. https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/cbp/technical-documentation/methodology.html
4. Mordor Intelligence / IBISWorld, United States Amusement and Theme Park Market (market-size estimates, 2025). https://www.mordorintelligence.com/industry-reports/united-states-amusement-and-theme-park-industry
5. IAAPA, 2024 North America Economic Impact Study (U.S. attractions direct revenue $52.8B; ~1.3M jobs), 2024. https://iaapa.org/research/2024-iaapa-economic-impact-study-north-america
6. The Walt Disney Company, Fourth Quarter and Full Year Fiscal 2024 Earnings (Experiences segment revenue $34.2B), 2024. https://thewaltdisneycompany.com/press-releases/the-walt-disney-company-reports-fourth-quarter-and-full-year-earnings-for-fiscal-2024/

For the complete, numbered source list — including Six Flags, United Parks, Comcast, EPR, Herschend, KIRKBI, and the regulatory citations — see the 713110 primer.