PortAventura

Historia

PortAventura World is an entertainment resort in Salou, Tarragona, on the Costa Daurada in Spain. It was built around the PortAventura theme park, which attracts around 4 million visitors per year, making it the most visited theme park in Spain and the sixth most visited theme park in Europe. The resort includes a second theme park, Ferrari Land, since 2017 and also includes PortAventura Caribe Aquatic Park and six hotels. It is the biggest resort in the south of Europe. It has two airports within 30 minutes of it, including Reus Airport. There is a train station for PortAventura which has connections to Barcelona and Salou.It was conceived and built as a joint effort by a Spanish Consortium and Anheuser-Busch (Busch Entertainment Corporation). When some of the Spanish Partners left the consortium the Tussauds Group replaced them as investors, finished the development and became the first operators. In 1997, Universal bought up most shares in the park and the park was rebranded as 'Universal's Port Aventura', which made as the first Universal Studios Theme Park in Europe. In 2000, two hotels and a water park (Costa Caribe) were constructed, and the resort was further rebranded as 'Universal Mediterranea'. In 2004, NBC Universal (Universal Studios' parent) sold all interest in PortAventura. It is now owned and operated by La Caixa banking group's investment vehicle Criteria, but as of 2005 the Universal name has been dropped from the branding, and the resort was once again named 'PortAventura' (the space in the name is deliberately left out for trademark reasons). In December 2013 KKR picks up 49.9% stake in PortAventura from Investindustrial that still owns 50.1%.