China’s first Legoland has made its debut after six years of construction. On the evening of May 28, tickets for the Shanghai Legoland Resort (hereinafter referred to as “Shanghai Legoland”) went on sale, with plans to officially open on July 5. The theme park industry in Shanghai is booming, with Disney, Peppa Pig, Harry Potter, and Lego all setting up shop, and more IP-themed parks are on the horizon. Dr. Xu Tao from Tongji-SEM was interviewed by the Economic Observer, analyzing and interpreting the unique attractiveness of Shanghai to international IP parks and the economic effects of the park cluster. The following is an excerpt from the original article.

Figure: Shanghai Legoland Resort Flagship Store

China’s first Legoland has made its debut after six years of construction.

Shanghai Legoland covers an area of 318,000 square meters and includes a hotel project with 250 rooms. On July 5, the price for a package including “two adults and one child” tickets and a hotel stay ranges from 3,400 to 7,500 yuan. The Economic Observer noted that within an hour and a half of the ticket launch, all the hotel rooms for the opening day, including the most expensive 7,463-yuan “Deluxe Garden Family Suite + Two-day Ticket,” were sold out.

On the evening of May 28, Li Jiaqi’s live broadcast also listed links for Shanghai Legoland tickets and hotels. This is the only influencer live broadcast that Shanghai Legoland has currently partnered with. In less than half an hour, nearly 3,000 tickets were sold in Li Jiaqi’s live broadcast.

The landing of Legoland has once again ignited the development boom of the theme park industry in Shanghai, and more IP-themed parks are on the horizon.

Top IP Theme Parks Line Up to Enter Shanghai

In addition to Legoland, “theme park enthusiasts” in Shanghai will welcome more parks. In 2027, Peppa Pig Outdoor Theme Park (hereinafter referred to as “Peppa Pig Park”) and the Harry Potter Studio Tour are both expected to open in Shanghai.

Peppa Pig Park is introduced and operated by Pulse Culture. The project is co-invested by Pulse Culture as one of the investors, together with the introduced investors and local state-owned enterprises. It covers an area of 290 acres, with an investment of over 2.4 billion yuan, and is expected to be completed in Chongming District, Shanghai in 2027. It will become the largest Peppa Pig theme park in Asia and the world. The Harry Potter Studio Tour is jointly developed by Jinjiang International Group and Warner Bros. Discovery Group, covering an area of about 53,000 square meters, and is expected to open in 2027.

Shanghai Peppa Pig Outdoor Theme Park, photo provided by the interviewee

Zhao Yang, president of Pulse Culture, told the Economic Observer that the park has completed the overall planning and design and is currently undergoing creative design. The main part of the park is initially planned to have five major themed amusement areas.

Disney, Peppa Pig, Harry Potter, and Lego have all set up shop in Shanghai. What is the economic rationale behind the clustering of these top global IP theme parks in Shanghai? Can the market support the coexistence of multiple parks?

Lin Huanjie said that when Shanghai Disneyland first opened, there were many problems with recruitment, training, and operation management, “as many things were done for the first time.” Now, when a park is coming, the whole city knows how to cooperate, such as how to connect transportation, how to set up supporting facilities, how to activate surrounding tourism resources, and what other business formats to introduce. Shanghai has also set up a special zone on the “Suishenban” APP to solicit opinions.

Dr. Xu Tao from the School of Economics and Management of Tongji University, who focuses on theme park economy, said that Shanghai’s unique attractiveness to international IP theme parks stems from the industrial ecosystem closed loop: the gathering of global finance and professional service networks to form a capital highland; the clustering of cultural creativity and digital economy as innovation incubators, with a complete range of film, animation, and other related industries, which can provide talent and technical support and drive rapid content iteration; and the local industrial chain spawned by Disney, which covers all links and can ensure the efficient implementation of projects.

Shanghai’s “Three-Year Action Plan for Promoting the High-Quality Development of Tourism (2025 – 2027)” repeatedly emphasizes key points such as “building world-class tourism landmarks,” “promoting the quality improvement and upgrading of world-class theme park matrices,” and “enhancing theme-based tourism products.”

Zhao Yang said that from the introduction, site selection to the promotion of Peppa Pig Park, it has received comprehensive support from various departments of Shanghai, Chongming District, and the Chongming Island Management Committee. The next step will be to report to the municipal government.

Shanghai’s “Orlando Moment”

Shanghai, as a megacity with a permanent population of 25 million, has a mutual interaction with international IP theme parks. Zhao Yang said that Peppa Pig Park is a family-oriented park, which can empower each other with the adjacent suburban park at the project site. The suburban park itself can attract millions of visitors every year.

Zhao Yang once experienced this kind of mutual interaction in Orlando, USA. In 1996, Zhao Yang worked in a tourism and cultural project in Orlando, when the city was in a rapid development stage of transforming from an agricultural city to a modern tourism and cultural city. Zhao Yang learned from the local urban planning department that at the beginning, Orlando had considered laying out industries such as manufacturing and high-tech, similar to Silicon Valley. However, due to its location at the southernmost part of the United States, there were many restrictions in developing other industries. After weighing the pros and cons, Orlando finally chose to vigorously develop tourism and create a strong tourism and cultural industry competitiveness for the city.

According to data from the American Theme Entertainment Association, Orlando’s visitor numbers reached 70 million in 2018. Currently, Orlando boasts around a dozen large-scale theme parks. Zhao Yang noted that when a series of high-quality cultural and tourism projects continuously cluster in a specific area, they form a cultural tourism hub, generating stronger brand effects and deeper market influence.

Xu Tao pointed out that Tokyo, Paris, and Orlando are widely regarded as the “benchmark cities” most comparable to Shanghai in terms of scale, functional positioning, and tourist demographics. By leveraging multiple theme park clusters and the year-round appeal of “sunshine vacations,” Orlando’s central Florida region achieved a tourism economy worth $92.5 billion in 2023, attracting over 74 million visitors and establishing a “resort corridor” model. Xu Tao believes that with the completion of the Peppa Pig Theme Park, the “twin layout” of Jinshan in the south and Chongming in the north will shift tourist focus from the city center to the outskirts, creating a multi-centric tourism structure. Integrated transportation, mixed-use functionalities, and multi-park clustering are generally the three key factors that amplify the economic multiplier effect of theme parks.

In 2016, when Shanghai Disney Resort was about to open, it sparked panic among industry insiders who feared a “wolf at the door” scenario. However, Zhao Yang argues that Disney’s presence raises industry standards and brings significant benefits to local cultural tourism, creating a clustering effect similar to Orlando’s theme park concentration, where parks complement one another.

From a commercialization perspective, theme parks must incorporate scenario-based business solutions from the initial stages of site selection and design. Zhao Yang cited the example of Universal Studios’ magic wands—a highly popular park merchandise—whose interactive in-park experiences were envisioned during the design phase. This requires close collaboration across multiple departments, including merchandise development and marketing.

Beyond Shanghai’s theme park plans, it is reported that Meichi Culture, which holds the exclusive Chinese licensing rights for Aardman Animations’ IP, has selected a city in Zhejiang for the first Shaun the Sheep Theme Park in China, with an official announcement expected in the second half of the year.

Faculty Profile

Xu Tao：Ph.D. and postdoctoral fellow from the School of Economics and Management of Tongji University. Jointly trained as a doctoral student at the University of Cambridge under the national scholarship. Also serves as a researcher at the Shanghai Industrial Innovation Ecosystem Research Center. Awarded funding for the Shanghai Super Postdoctoral Incentive Program and the Data Element Young Scholar Project.

Research fields: Public policy and macroeconomic analysis, labor economics, development economics and human resource management