French Company Aims to Ride on China’s Booming Theme-Park Market

China’s theme-park market is getting more crowded, with a new entrant, French multimedia and publishing group Media-Participations, announcing its ambition to vie for a piece of the growing pie.

Media-Participations will join with Shanghai’s Dragon Deity Capital to build five or six theme parks over the next five years, with the first location being in Shanghai.

The amount of the investment and the partnership details weren’t disclosed.

“What differentiates our theme parks from the others is that we will incorporate advanced technologies, family-oriented concepts and many famous comic characters,” Media-Participations Chairman Vincent Montagne was quoted by the Chinese media as saying.

Media-Participations is the fourth-largest publishing company in France. With comic publishing brands Dargaud, Le Lombard, Kana and Dupuis under its wings, it’s the largest player in that segment in Europe, according to its website.

China is expected to surpass the U.S. as the world’s largest theme-park market by 2020, attracting 221 million people a year, according to U.S. consulting firm AECOM. An estimated 109 theme parks were in China at the end of 2016.

After The Walt Disney Co. launched its Shanghai resort in 2016, several other big names, such as Universal Studios Inc. and toy-maker Lego Group A/S, have begun building theme parks in China. U.S. amusement park operator Six Flags Entertainment Corp. said last year it will add three more projects to its two theme parks currently under construction in China.

Chinese developers, with brands such as Chimelong, Wanda Group and Happy Valley — which dominated the market before Disney’s arrival — have also increased their presence.

Even a little-known Chinese outfit wants to jump on the bandwagon. In October, China UniCreative Group announced plans to link up with “a Hollywood team” and invest hundreds of billions of yuan in several “theme towns” featuring “world-class” intellectual property rights in the coming years.

Contact reporter Jason Tan (jasontan@caixin.com)