Attendance was down at Universal Orlando theme parks in the second quarter of the year, but Comcast Corp. executives maintain optimism about the business and the tourism industry.
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Revenue was up for the company’s content and experiences segment, which includes attractions, but “growth in Orlando came in below our expectations as attendance began to soften in June and has remained pressured into the third quarter,” Jason Armstrong, Comcast’s chief financial officer, said during an earnings call this week.
Theme park revenue worldwide rose 2.7% over the April-May-June period of 2025 for Comcast, landing at $2.41 billion, up from $2.34 billion.
The company does not reveal attendance figures for individual parks, but executives continue to praise the results for its Epic Universe, which opened in Orlando in late May of 2025.
“It’s delivering against our expectations,” Michael Cavanaugh, co-chief executive officer, said in a conference call with market analysts. “Guest response continues to be strong. It’s driving higher per-capita spend and … is making it [Universal Orlando] a true multi-destination resort. So we’re not seeing anything that causes us to feel at all disappointed in the performance of Epic. It’s an overall demand drop that’s hitting Orlando broadly.”
The decline is thought to be due to “weakness in consumer sentiment and higher travel costs affecting demand,” he said.
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Comcast properties in Orlando include Epic Universe, Islands of Adventure, Universal Studios Florida and Volcano Bay water park. Universal operates 11 on-property hotels, including three resorts that opened near Epic last year.
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“We fully expect that once economic conditions and consumer demand sizes for us that we’ll be getting that attendance back and thrilling our fans in these parks because they are such good businesses and good experiences, and we’re proud of the product.” Cavanaugh said.
The earnings report comes less than a month after Comcast Corp. announced it would spin off NBCUniversal into its own public company that will include the theme parks as well as film, television and streaming assets. Cavanaugh will be CEO of NBCUniversal. The goal is to complete the separation in about a year, he said.
Comcast’s other businesses include broadband and wireless industries. In the second quarter, the exisiting company recorded $29.94 billion in revenue in the second quarter, a drop of 1.2% from a year earlier.
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