When Port Aventura opened in 1995 in Salou,[1] The Tussauds Group owned 40.0% of the park while La Caixa had 33.2%, Anheuser-Busch had 19.9%, and FECSA had 6.7%.[2][3][4][5] In 1998 the majority of Tussauds Group's shares in the park were sold to Universal and the park was rebranded as 'Universal's Port Aventura', which made it the first Universal Studios Theme Park in Europe.[6][7][8]

In 2002, a water park (Costa Caribe) and two hotels (Hotel PortAventura and Hotel El Paso) were constructed, and the resort was further rebranded as 'Universal Mediterranea'.[9][10] In 2004, NBCUniversal (Universal Studios' parent) sold all interest in PortAventura.[11] It is 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 2009, the resort hosted 3,310,000 visitors.[12]

In December 2013, private equity firm KKR[13] picked up 49.9% stake in PortAventura from Investindustrial, which still owned 50.1%. In 2016 the resort was renamed as 'PortAventura World Parks & Resort'.[14] The second theme park, Ferrari Land, was inaugurated on 7 April 2017.[15] PortAventura Dream Village, an exclusive vacation for guests with additional needs, opened in 2017.[16]

Annual visits[17][18][19][20][21] 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 Visits to the parks 3,703,217 3,700,000 3,819,474 3,940,444 3,896,901 4,715,088 4,962,512 Visits to PortAventura Park 3,439,444 3,494,998 3,499,375 3,528,908 3,607,937 3,589,918 Visits to PortAventura Caribe Aquatic Park 263,773 324,476 313,831 367,993 335,351 326,611 Visits to Ferrari Land – – – – – 713,421 1,045,983 Visits to Cirque du Soleil – – 100,000 127,238 – 58,379 – International visits 35% 38% 36% 33% 33% 33% 36% Rooms occupied 323,723 334,409 337,219 376,026 390,200 Participants at Convention Centre 44,461 64,536 81,352 72,461 68,782 73,671 Events at Convention Centre 154 184 226 259 201 Total visits (parks, hotels, convention centre) 4,984,092 4,946,389 5,837,509 6,130,308 Balance sheet figures (thousands of euros) Non-current assets 913,867 934,196 968,483 997,964 988,362 Current assets 31,939 19,802 27,320 44,740 58,822 Equity and liabilities 945,806 953,998 995,803 1,042,704 1,047,184 Current and non-current liabilities 500,990 492,577 515,062 548,418 543,028 Income statement results (thousands of euros) Equivalent turnover 181,200 181,800 194,682 191,160 203,055 234,957 230,349