NBC Universal wrote a $300 million check to create the snow-infested Hogwarts and Diagon Alley in the middle of Orlando, Fla. So far, it seems to be paying off.

The Wizarding World of Harry Potter boosted ticket sales by nearly 60 percent to $190 million at Universal Orlando. At the same time, merchandising has doubled -- thanks entirely to Harry Potter -- to $104 million, according to The St. Petersburg Times.

That has had a tremendous effect on neighboring Disney World. The famous park is spending $300 million of its own now for its Fantasyland expansion, which is set to open in 2013.

Bringing Harry Potter to Universal has made the theme park soar, especially as its neighbors remained flat. Disney attendance, for example, rose just 1 percent while Universal grew by 36 percent. SeaWorld Orlando, however, continues to suffer in attendance after a whale trainer was killed earlier this year at the park. Its sister park, Busch Gardens an hour or so down Interstate 4 in Tampa, has grown attendance year-over-year despite not having any new major ride openings.

Marketing professor Pieter Cornelis said investing as little as $10 million in new attractions could provide immediate attendance boosts of 10 percent, if done right.

"New attractions are more important than anything you do in marketing or pricing to get more people to visit a park," Cornelis said.

Despite struggles in tourism -- thanks to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill -- and poor economic times, Universal Orlando has raised ticket prices more than once.

The film and marketing rights to Harry Potter belong to Warner Bros., which in turn has licensed those rights longterm to NBCU to make it part of its theme park in Orlando.

The new area of the park -- which is part of Islands of Adventure next to Universal Studios -- has opened just in time for the highly anticipated finale to the Harry Potter movie franchise. "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1" opens this weekend, with the second part set to debut next summer. Both should give even stronger boosts to the park feature over the next two years.