Abstract: Theme park are a relatively new concept in tourism. Its history can be traced back to the mid 1950s with the opening of Disneyland in California, USA. China’s theme park can be dated back to 1989 with the success opening of Splendid China in Shenzhen. Now there are about 20 major theme park in China. The planning and development of theme park has received limited coverage in the literature. The present paper introduces a model to interpret the major factors that influence theme park development, including tourist market, traffic, regional economic development level, tourist image of the city, spatial agglomeration and competition of theme park, and behavior of decision makers. Tourist market, traffic and regional economic development level are essential conditions for the development of theme park. Theme park will not be success if the essential conditions are not satisfied. Tourist image of the city, spatial agglomeration and competition of theme park are limiting conditions that influence the decision behavior of tourists. The paper also offers a systematic analysis of the relationship among all these factors.

Key words: theme park, development, influential factors