{"id":2004786,"date":"2025-09-07T22:36:01","date_gmt":"2025-09-07T22:36:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2004786"},"modified":"2025-09-07T22:36:01","modified_gmt":"2025-09-07T22:36:01","slug":"universal-eyes-global-growth-after-epic-universe-debut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/universal-eyes-global-growth-after-epic-universe-debut\/","title":{"rendered":"Universal Eyes Global Growth After Epic Universe Debut"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n <\/a>\n <\/div><\/div>\n

Just a few months
\nafter opening its newest park, Universal
\nOrlando<\/a>\u2019s Epic
\nUniverse<\/a> is already showing promising signs, and CEO of Universal Destinations
\n& Experiences, Mark Woodbury, says this is just the beginning for
\nUniversal\u2019s expansion plans both in the U.S. and abroad.<\/p>\n

Speaking with Bank
\nof America Securities analyst Jessica Reif Ehrlich this week, Woodbury offered
\ninsight into the park\u2019s early performance, the potential for future expansion
\nand what\u2019s on the horizon for the brand globally.<\/p>\n

Strong Start
\nfor Epic Universe<\/b><\/p>\n

According to the interview
\npublished in the Orlando
\nSentinel<\/a>, Woodbury said the park is meeting expectations and driving more
\nvisitors to the resort overall. \u201cIt\u2019s doing exactly what we wanted it to do, in
\nterms of driving incremental attendance to the resort as a whole and the
\nperformance line for caps, very strong since we opened the doors. And you can
\nsee it in merchandise. You see it in the food offerings. A lot of great
\ncreative work went into both of those. Not without challenges when you open an
\nentire theme park at once\u2026 It\u2019s always a little complicated to get it to ramp
\nup to full speed, and we\u2019re in the process of doing that now. Nothing that we
\ndidn\u2019t expect.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
\"Tips<\/p>\n

Universal Epic Universe made its debut late last month. (Photo Credit: Universal Orlando)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Room for
\nExpansion<\/b><\/p>\n

Even as the park
\nsettles in, Universal has already planned space for growth. \u201cIf you fly over
\nEpic or you look at Google Earth, you\u2019ll see how we planned the park, and
\nyou\u2019ll see greenfield space between the existing worlds, and that is
\nstrategically positioned to give us flexibility to expand the world or create a
\nnew world,\u201d Woodbury said. While he did not announce specific upcoming
\nattractions, he confirmed that \u201cthere are multiple attractions in the works,
\nnot just at Epic, but when you have the three parks, the cadence of product
\ndelivery across the resort to continue to drive the resort is really a key part
\nof our strategy going forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

Addressing rumors
\nthat the next Epic Universe land is destined to be a \u201cWicked\u201d-themed world, Woodbury
\nimplied that that\u2019s not something that\u2019s part of the company\u2019s plan. \u201cI think I
\nmight have stirred that pot when I saw the \u2018Wicked\u2019 sets and said it was a
\ntheme park waiting to happen,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n

A Focus on Families<\/b><\/p>\n

Universal is also
\nbroadening its reach to younger audiences with its Universal
\nKids Resort<\/a> in Frisco, Texas, which is scheduled to open in 2026. Woodbury
\ncalls the property, which will be anchored by DreamWorks franchises and other
\nUniversal IPs popular with youth \u201cour first Universal Kids Resort that allows
\nus to both segment the audience and segment our portfolio of properties, and in
\nthe process build a regional product that is sort of a rite of passage for
\nfamilies and much more accessible for young families in a regional form.\u201d He
\nadded, \u201cThey get to that park from all over Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and [with
\na] 300-room hotel as part of it, [it\u2019s a] great product and a feeder as they
\nage up to become aligned with our brand and then grow into our bigger parks.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
\"Rendering<\/p>\n

Rendering of Universal Kids Resort. (Photo Credit: Universal Resorts Media)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

International
\nPlans<\/b><\/p>\n

Universal is also
\nmoving forward with the development of a new park in England. Woodbury said
\ninfrastructure needs, such as rail expansion and highway access, add
\ncomplexity, but the company is confident in its planning. \u201cWe think we have a
\npretty good handle on it at this point,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a full-blown
\nUniversal theme park with a 500-room hotel that is part of it, very much like
\nEpic in terms of a big park with a hotel,\u201d Woodbury explained. He emphasized
\nthat the UK park is being designed to complement existing Orlando visits rather
\nthan compete. \u201cWe\u2019ve created a different mix of attractions that we think will
\nwork great in the UK, but basically it\u2019ll perform very much like one of our
\nstandalone parks in terms of attendance, in terms of per caps and overall
\nEBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) performance,\u201d
\nhe noted.<\/p>\n

International expansion
\nalso requires attention to local preferences. \u201cThe main product is Universal,
\nand it\u2019s Universal-branded IPs, but then you get really focused,\u201d Woodbury said.
\n\u201cMenu \u2014 it\u2019s very unique culturally. You have to pay close attention to that.
\nAnd the other place where international development is unique is around humor.
\nHumor varies very differently in different cultures,\u201d he explained. <\/p>\n\n

For the latest travel news, updates and deals, subscribe to the daily TravelPulse newsletter<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n


\n Topics From This Article to Explore
\n <\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.travelpulse.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just a few months after opening its newest park, Universal Orlando\u2019s Epic Universe is already showing promising signs, and CEO of Universal Destinations & Experiences, Mark Woodbury, says this is just the beginning for Universal\u2019s expansion plans both in the U.S. and abroad. Speaking with Bank of America Securities analyst Jessica Reif Ehrlich this week, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2004787,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[307460,325214,54641,23898,21741,26961,22373,320111,21738,21825,349173,317725,325212,325215,25432,347703],"class_list":["post-2004786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-apple-news","tag-bing-news","tag-destinations","tag-england","tag-entertainment","tag-europe","tag-florida","tag-msn","tag-news","tag-north-america","tag-orlando","tag-smartnews","tag-travelpulse-us","tag-tronc","tag-united-states","tag-universal-orlando"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Universal-Eyes-Global-Growth-After-Epic-Universe-Debut.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2004786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2004786"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2004786\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2004787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2004786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2004786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2004786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}