History GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff / ThemeParks

* Many of the visitors to Ride/UniversalStudios Florida are British tourists, which can largely be attributed to ''Ride/TheWizardingWorldOfHarryPotter''. It also drew a large amount of Japanese tourists before Universal Studios Japan's counterpart opened in 2017 -- and even then, they tend to visit Florida to see Diagon Alley.

** Disney in general is very, ''very'' popular in Japan. Even [[Ride/DisneyThemeParks Tokyo Disneyland]], the first park to open overseas, was done in the style of the American parks (specifically, the best of both Disneyland Anaheim and Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom during the time the Tokyo park was conceived), compared to the massive changes made to Disneyland Paris a decade later. Disneyland and Walt Disney World ''still'' receive a massive amount of Japanese tourists, who treat the parks as a sort of "Mecca". Hell, even Disneyland Paris received an enormous number of Japanese tourists.

** Disney in general is very, ''very'' popular in Japan. Even [[Ride/DisneyThemeParks Tokyo Disneyland]], the first park to open overseas, was done in the style of the American parks (specifically, the best of both Disneyland Anaheim and Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom during the time the Tokyo park was conceived), compared to the massive changes made to Disneyland Paris a decade later. Disneyland and Walt Disney World ''still'' receive a massive amount of Japanese tourists, who treat the parks as a sort of "Mecca".

** Duffy the Disney Bear started out as "The Disney Bear" stateside at Disney Springs' Once Upon a Toy toyshop as an OriginalCharacter and [[FollowTheLeader attempt to cash in]] on the popularity of Build-A-Bear Workshop, but didn't turn out to be the hit that Disney had hoped for. Then the Oriental Land Company (the company that owns and operates the Disney parks in Japan under license from Disney) got hold of him, gave him a redesign, a name, and a backstory, and he became a ''huge'' hit there. The lines for his meet and greet rival those for the most popular rides. This in turn led to Duffy gaining a large supporting cast[[note]]Shellie May, Gelatoni, Stella Lou, Cookie Ann (who debuted at Hong Kong Disneyland), Olu' Mel (who debuted at Aulani Resort) and [=LinaBell=] (who debuted at Shanghai Disney Resort)[[/note]]. Then, Disney had the bright idea to bring him over to the stateside parks again, and had him pretty much take over EPCOT and Disney California Adventure. Unfortunately, [[AmericansHateTingle Americans hate Duffy]] and view him as a CreatorsPet. While there are stateside fans of Duffy, they weren't enough to crowd out the overwhelming negative reaction, and by the mid-2010s all traces of Duffy were gone from the US [=shopDisney=] website and both EPCOT and California Adventure (save for the aformentioned Aulani merchandise). He still remains popular in Japan and the Hong Kong and Shanghai parks -- to quote [=YouTuber=] Disney Dan, "Duffy Bear is their [[EnsembleDarkHorse Figment]]."

** Orange Bird was originally created in 1970 to promote Florida Citrus and became rather obscure in the U.S. due to being associated with the Anita Bryant orange juice boycott. It found a new life in Japan when Tokyo Disneyland brought back the character in 2004 in conjunction with Orange Day to huge success, and Orange Bird became somewhat of a mascot for Orange Day in Japan. This probably prompted a resurgence of interest for the bird back in the U.S., leading to nostalgic merchandise, a cameo in an ''WesternAnimation/InsideOut'' children's book and its return to the Magic Kingdom's Sunshine Tree Terrace he once called home.

* Universal Studios has some examples:
** Most of the visitors to Ride/UniversalStudios Florida are British tourists, which can largely be attributed to ''Ride/TheWizardingWorldOfHarryPotter''.
*** It also received a good chunk of Japanese visitors to the Florida park before the Japan park opened their land in 2017, giving the huge popularity of the franchise in Japan.
** Universal Studios Japan is very popular among Japanese tourists with almost 13 million Japanese visitors to the park in 2019 (the other 2 million visitors are mainly from other Asia countries such as South Korea, China, and the Philippines), the reason is because they have numerous properties (Harry Potter, Despicable Me/Minions, Sesame Street, Super Mario, Spider-Man, Hello Kitty, Jurassic Park, Peanuts, Transformers, Jaws, Sing, and soon, Pokemon to be exact) that they are very popular among Japanese people in the country. The wait times for the rides are longer than their US parks (Florida and Hollywood), with Mario Kart, Hollywood Dream, and The Flying Dinosaur being the most popular attractions at the park to date.
** The Beijing Park is also very popular among Chinese visitors; like the Japan park, the rides also receives longer wait times in their park than the Florida or Hollywood parks.

** The reverse is true as well; Tokyo Disney Resort receives a massive amount of international tourists, to the point that the vast majority of the park's signage is written in both Japanese and English, and theme park fans usually regard it as the best of all the Disney parks (especially Tokyo [=DisneySea=]). It does help that the park is not owned by Disney, but franchised by The Oriental land Company, who give this resort a big "No costs spared" attitude to it, even spending on Imagineers to design new attractions and shows that are exclusive for the park, and it shows. Australians and New Zealanders are some of the most common international visitors, since they don't have a Disney park of their own and Tokyo Disney Resort is the closest thing they can go to.
** South American people (Brazilians in general) tend to love Walt Disney World, since Florida is close enough to them that they can make the trip without having to fly overseas. It even got ads for that region on TV!

** Soarin is very popular in both Tokyo [=DisneySea=] and Shanghai Disneyland, to the point that has some of the longest wait times of both parks and trends to be longer than the American ones.