Disney announces a new theme park in Abu Dhabi, its first new resort in a generation

The Walt Disney Company and Abu Dhabi's Miral announced an agreement to create a landmark Disney theme park resort in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. (Disney via CNN Newsource)

Los Angeles, Calif. — For the first time in 15 years, the Walt Disney Company has announced the development of a new theme park – a resort destination in Abu Dhabi that marks the company’s entry into the Middle East.

The Disneyland Abu Dhabi resort will become Disney’s seventh global resort destination, the company announced Wednesday shortly after reporting strong second-quarter earnings.

Disney’s parks have arguably been its most important financial driver, representing 59% of its operating income in the 2024 fiscal year as streaming competition heats up. And while domestic parks attendance decreased modestly last year, Disney reported Wednesday morning that US park attendance rose again, and revenue surged in the first quarter. Although the company sees potential in its international resorts, where there’s been more growth in attendance and guest spending, China has been a pain point amid the trade war: park attendance in Shanghai and Hong Kong fell, and international park sales tumbled in the first quarter as a result.

Miral, an Abu Dhabi company, will fully develop, build and operate the resort with Disney Imagineers leading creative design and operational oversight. With a potential opening in the early 2030s, the initial project plan includes one theme park and an unknown number of hotels.

“Every time we open a new experience or a theme park… it’s really important not just to take a theme park that might exist somewhere else and plop it into the ground in that new area that we would be going into,” Josh D’Amaro, the chairman of Disney Experiences, told CNN in an exclusive interview with CNN’s Becky Anderson in Abu Dhabi.

Each park needs to reflect, in its design, its food and more, each specific location, he added. “And so here in, in Abu Dhabi, we want the same thing.”

A whole new world

Both Abu Dhabi and Dubai airports have ambitious plans, with their vision as a pair of world-leading airports connecting a third of the world’s population within a four-hour flight. That includes the 1.4 billion people living in India, many of whom would be able to travel a shorter distance to Abu Dhabi than to Disney’s parks in Shanghai or Hong Kong.

D’Amaro said a potential 500 million people in the region have the means to visit a Disney theme park. That easy access, coupled with the country’s future-oriented development, factored into Disney’s decision.

“There was no question that for our seventh resort, this is where it was going to be,” D’Amaro said.

Disney’s resort will be located on Yas Island, where Miral has developed other resorts including SeaWorld YAS Island Abu Dhabi, Yas Waterworld, and Warner Bros. World, built under license by CNN’s parent company, Warner Brothers Discovery.

Yas Island is within a 20-minute drive of downtown Abu Dhabi and a 50-minute drive from Dubai. It is home to several existing theme parks, a golf course, marina, waterfront and mall, with 165 eateries across the island.

“It stands to reason that, as with other such projects, Disney’s partners in Abu Dhabi will want to make a statement with this park, and have their Disneyland be the anchor that drives visits to Yas Island,” said Tom Bricker, co-founder of DisneyTouristBlog.com. “The combination of constraints and a blank canvas should be really exciting for Disney fans, surpassing even Shanghai Disneyland—we likely won’t see an opportunity like this again in our lifetimes.”

But Abu Dhabi may prove to be a difficult location for Disney to turn a profit.

“The Middle East has seen hits and misses as it relates to theme park and leisure development,” said Dennis Speigel, owner and founder of consulting firm International Theme Park Services. “Dubai early on…planned and opened a slate of theme parks which were over capitalized and frankly overbuilt.”

Speigel, who is not part of the Disney project, had consulted for investors in Middle East theme parks in years past. He said several theme parks in Dubai and throughout Saudi Arabia “struggled and showed no profit for at least 10 years.”

But Speigel said Disney chose the right spot within the region: “I was surprised to hear the announcement at this time, but not surprised to learn Disney chose Abu Dhabi. The critical mass of leisure development already established in the area provides the necessary elements required by Disney to come into the area in a more manageable way.”

Like a living “Tomorrowland”

Disney says this new venture will be its most technologically advanced park, blending with the city of Abu Dhabi’s future-oriented aesthetic.

While every Disney resort is anchored with a castle park, this castle will be different than fairytale-style landmarks. The artist rendering of the castle provided by Disney shows a spiraling, crystal-like structure towering above the rest of the park.

The property will also be the first Disney resort to sit directly on a waterfront (the Tokyo Disney Resort was built on the edge of the Pacific Ocean, but the water is only seen beyond park walls, not accessible by guests).

The company is also ready to take advantage of its recent investments in immersive gaming.

For example, D’Amaro said, Disney could use Unreal Engine, a developer tool used in many Disney films to create renderings, to also pull that imagery into theme park attractions.

“So that the real-time translation of stories from film, from game, to theme park, it’s right there for our guests to enjoy. So we’re very, very bullish on this space, and I think for this part, particularly given how tech-forward it’s going to be, we have a huge opportunity.”

Park wars

Disney hasn’t announced a new theme park or resort since its 2010 Shanghai Disneyland news.

The Abu Dhabi announcement comes one month after Universal said it would build its seventh resort, this time in the United Kingdom, and just weeks before Universal opens Epic Universe in Central Florida, the first major opening in 26 years for the country’s biggest hub of theme parks.

Disney dismissed concerns that new competition would hurt foot traffic at Walt Disney World.

“Anytime something opens up in Central Florida, we get more tourists coming in,” D’Amaro said on CNBC Wednesday morning. “You’re not going to go to you’re not going to come into Central Florida and not go visit Star Wars. … We feel that we’re going to benefit from that.”

Disneyland Abu Dhabi has been under discussion for about a decade, D’Amaro told CNN. Disney’s theme parks hosted more than 140 million guests globally in 2023, the most of any amusement or theme park operator in the world. That includes more than 17 million annual visitors each at Magic Kingdom in Florida and Disneyland Park in California, the two most-visited theme parks on Earth.

Domestic theme park attendance softened last year, as Americans criticized big price increases or started to scale back travel spending in an uncertain economy. International parks had been outperforming their domestic counterparts. But the reversal in fortunes in the first quarter proves adding strategic locations around the world can help Disney balance out fluctuations in the global economy.

“Even with consumer confidence somewhat down and some issues in terms of the economy, people still see a Disney theme park experience as really special,” Disney CEO Bob Iger said on CNBC Wednesday. “They’re just incredibly resilient.”

When asked about a fifth park in Florida, D’Amaro cited aggressive expansion projects within the existing four parks at Walt Disney World without mentioning a new park.

Strong earnings

Disney’s parks, as well as its streaming businesses — including Disney+ and Hulu — helped the company deliver US$23.6 billion in revenue, a 7% on-year increase, and $4.4 billion in operating income, a 15% on-year increase.

The company’s entertainment streaming businesses performed strongly, delivering $10.7 billion in revenue and $1.3 billion in operating income. While Disney+ lost 700,000 subscribers during 2025’s first quarter, the streaming platform made that up and more in the second quarter, adding 1.4 million subscribers, bringing the streamer to 126 million subscribers. Hulu, meanwhile, added 1.3 million subscribers, a 3% increase. And the company’s direct-to-consumer operating revenue also climbed, jumping to $336 million, up from $47 million the prior year.

Meanwhile, the company’s sports revenue increased 5% to $4.5 billion as segment operating income decreased $91 million, to $687 million. Disney attributed the drop to increased programming and production costs from three additional college football playoff games and an added NFL game during the quarter — though these helped increase domestic advertising revenue 29%.

While the company expects growth to continue during the third quarter, projecting a modest increase in Disney+ subscribers during the third quarter and double-digit increases to both entertainment and sports, Disney remains cautious about the future in the face of economic headwinds.

“We continue to monitor macroeconomic developments for potential impacts to our businesses and recognize that uncertainty remains regarding the operating environment for the balance of the fiscal year,” the company said in its earnings report.

By Natasha Chen, CNN