2007 was a big year for Disneyland Resort Paris in many ways, but none more so than its phenomenal boost in visitor numbers. The figures for the year were first confirmed in last November’s annual report, and, as we announced at the time — they well and truly “smashed the 14 million”, with a spectacular 14.5 million guests stepping through the gates of the two parks.

The annual reports from the Themed Entertainment Association stack up all the attendance reports from every theme or amusement park around the world, with one of the most interesting aspects for a DLRP fan being the chance to see attendance figures for the two parks separately.

And, whilst Disneyland Park hasn’t climbed up the league table and Walt Disney Studios Park only by one place, they can boast the most impressive attendance increases of any theme park in the world — 13.1% for Disneyland Park and 13.6% for Walt Disney Studios Park, or 1.4 million and 300,000 respectively. The only park with a boost of a similar level was Heide Park in Germany, with a 16.7% increase helping its attendance by roughly 200,000.

Disneyland Park attracted a full 12 million guests of the 14.5 million total through its gates (5th place Worldwide, 1st place Europe) whilst, according to this study, Walt Disney Studios Park pulled in the other 2.5 million (1oth place Europe), putting it one place up the European leaderboard and ahead of UK rival Alton Towers for the first time.

Click to enlarge; (C) TEA/ERA

But Studios fans, you’re right to object — the second gate at Disneyland Resort Paris does attract far, far more people than this. The inaccuracy in these estimated figures is that Euro Disney SCA count their parks on what they call a “first click” basis, so if you bought a Park Hopper and visited Disneyland Park the first day and Walt Disney Studios Park the second, your “point” would go to Disneyland Park, and the Studios wouldn’t get anything.

Therefore we can only discover that, of those 14.5 million guests, 12 million headed straight for Disneyland whilst 2.5 million went straight for the Studios. The good thing here being that the Studios’ growth was 0.5% higher than that of Disneyland Park, suggesting the very first signs of guests’ priorities changing thanks to the new attractions in Toon Studio. If both figures were to be shown as the “true” number of unique guests which passed through the gates of each park, there is no doubt that Walt Disney Studios Park would easily be second on the list, just beating Pleasure Beach Blackpool, which, it should be noted, currently has no entrance charge.

Fans of Disneyland Resort Paris will no doubt await the 2008 figures with great anticipation, as we wait and see if the “Tower of Terror effect” can finally begin to readdress the imbalance between these “first click” park figures.

— You can download the full attendance report as a PDF here.