No additional guests = No new rides

I see it a lot in the forums, complaints that TDL/TDS get tons of new rides, and get the best rides, while WDW parks settle for a new attraction every few years, and more than likely, the new attraction is replacing an old attraction.

TDS/TDL has a different circumstance than WDW does. The park is located in an urban area, one which happens to be the most populated urban area on the planet. The vast majority of their attendance comes from the local area (only 2.5% of the business comes from overseas/outside of Japan). TDS/TDL simply needs to expand so they can fit all of their visitors inside the parks. Also, because 97.5% of the visitors to the parks come from the immediate area, they do not really need to be concerned with downturns in the travel industry.

WDW does not have this problem. The parks have fairly consitant attendance, especially the Magic Kingdom. Regardless, the parks are rarely if ever filling to the point where they need to find places to put guests.

MGM had the problem that TDS/TDL currently has when it first opened in 1989. The park was small, and the vast majority of the park was only accessible by going on the 2.5-3 hour studio tour. (Only Hollywood BLVD, Echo Lake, and the Animation Courtyard were accessible to guests.) The park was so busy upon opening the an immediate expansion had to occur. Within a year or so, the NY street area was opened to guest, along with Mickey Ave, as the crowds were to thick in the existing areas that were accessible. Within 2 or 3 years, quite a number of new attractions were opened, including Star Tours, MuppetVision....and finally, 5 years after the park opened, Sunset Blvd was added. The park had a capacity problem, and fixed it by major expansion.

None of the WDW parks have this problem anymore. The lines are never so long that they are causing problems (sans TT, I have not seen a 90 minute wait sign in a long time, not even over the 4th of July) and the lands are rarely so congested that they are uncomforable.

Without these capacity and congestion problems, any new ride would be view as more of a market tool than as a solution to a problem. The new rides get advertising, and give the general public another reason to venture down to the parks.

BUT....is the concept of replacement v. addtion just creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. If no need exists to expand capacity because there is not a capacity issue, are there not capacity issues because there are not enough attractions. If the parks maintain a level number of attractions, the guest's stays will remain rather consistant.
For Example:
If it takes 8-10 hours to do everything at the Magic Kingdom, and this number stays consistant, the only addtional capacity is created by new guests. On the other hand, if new attractions are added to the MK, and with the additions the MK would take 13-15 hours to complete, (Yet the MK is only open 11-12 hours on the average day), guests would need to either stay an extra part of another day (creating that many more admissions on that day, which would be in addition to the guests already visiting that day, which would in turn require more capacity) Or they may be futher inclined to visit the parks again at a later date, but since they were not able to see everything, that date may be sooner than it otherwise would have been.

Any thoughts?

(BTW, TDL/TDS data came from the OLC website, which is found here )

I agree that TDL/TDS should get the new rides as its attendance is I'm sure MUCH higher than anything WDW sees, but I may be wrong. With 97.5% of the guests living within say 20 miles, they are going every year or at least every other year and want to see new things. If their attendance is higher, that means they get more money and have a larger budget to use for their park. We know Eisner won't take their money and use it on a different park, so that's out of the question. As for WDW, I don't see it as a problem that they get a new ride every couple years instead of every year. As it is now, the rides we get that are new are usually high-budget and excellent rides. If we were to get a new ride each year we would keep seeing the Dumbo-esque clones and other cheap rides that have a lack in theme and/or thrill. I say keep it the way it is because it's doing just fine for me! :wave:

Also, keep in mind that-- besides the up-front costs of building a new attraction-- the company must perpetually spend money staffing and maintaining that attraction.

From a business standpoint, an ADDED attraction (vs. a REPLACEMENT) must generate enough foot traffic to AT LEAST pay for itself-- and, more realistically, contribute to the company's profit.

In theory, "Stitch's Great Escape" will retain the same staffing and maintenence costs as "Alien Encounter"--- with the hope it will propel more paying visitors through the turnstyles.

An attraction like "Mickey's Philharmagic" most certainly costs less to operate and maintain than the building's previous "Lion King" show.

But "Mission Space" obviously was much MORE expensive to build, maintain, and staff than "Horizons". However, it appears Disney made the right calculation. That single attraction has put Epcot back on the map, driving up ticket sales.

97.5 % of guests live locally?? That can`t be right for the `Number 1 vacation destination in the world` can it?

This notwithstanding, no new rides = no regular return visits...

marni1971 said:

97.5 % of guests live locally?? That can`t be right for the `Number 1 vacation destination in the world` can it?

This notwithstanding, no new rides = no regular return visits...

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That is the figure for the Tokyo parks. 97.5% of guests are domestic....which, given the size of Japan, would be like 97.5% of WDW visitors would come from Florida and Georgia, which they do not. (over 80% of Tokyo's guests come from an area within a 2 hour drive of Tokyo)

Dr Albert Falls said:

Also, keep in mind that-- besides the up-front costs of building a new attraction-- the company must perpetually spend money staffing and maintaining that attraction.

From a business standpoint, an ADDED attraction (vs. a REPLACEMENT) must generate enough foot traffic to AT LEAST pay for itself-- and, more realistically, contribute to the company's profit.

In theory, "Stitch's Great Escape" will retain the same staffing and maintenence costs as "Alien Encounter"--- with the hope it will propel more paying visitors through the turnstyles.

An attraction like "Mickey's Philharmagic" most certainly costs less to operate and maintain than the building's previous "Lion King" show.

But "Mission Space" obviously was much MORE expensive to build, maintain, and staff than "Horizons". However, it appears Disney made the right calculation. That single attraction has put Epcot back on the map, driving up ticket sales.

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That was my first point. WDW doesn't need to expand, because the crowds do not warrent expansion. They do need to replace, as they need to have something new to market, and to keep at least the same number of visitors in the park.

The problem that I see, is that without expansion, they may never see "new" guests....the attendance numbers may never grow by leaps and bounds.

Expansion does cost a lot more. Whereas the up-front costs of expansion could be similar to replacement, the on-going costs would be higher. The only way expansion would be very benificial is if they expanded to a point that the extra addmissions generated by the expansion would fill a good portion of the new capacity.

But doesn't poor economy = less money=less travelling for vacations = poor attendance=, etc. ?

This is not my area of expertise, but aren't the Tokyo parks doing so well because of the close proximity? WDW has a far greater area to draw from, but not everyone can afford the trip.
(or am I hopelessly lost?)

I'd love to see more new rides & shows, but as an improvement not just to add things.

tigsmom said:

But doesn't poor economy = less money=less travelling for vacations = poor attendance=, etc. ?

This is not my area of expertise, but aren't the Tokyo parks doing so well because of the close proximity? WDW has a far greater area to draw from, but not everyone can afford the trip.
(or am I hopelessly lost?)

I'd love to see more new rides & shows, but as an improvement not just to add things.

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Yes. This is one of the problems that WDW has to deal with that really does not effect the Tokyo parks.....this problem is a barrier to both expansion and replacement. Although many want to place the blame on Eisner for the cutbacks over the recent years, without the cutbacks, WDC would be a far weaker company, and maybe even more of a target for a takeover.

If you look at the years not influenced by bad economic times, they have fairly consistant attendance. It is very cyclical.....the economy goes bad, the attendance drops, the economy gets better, the attendance gets better. Usually, the first year the the economy is "good", the attendance will be slightly higher than the average "good" years, as the bad economy does create some pent-up demand....people who have been unable to travel for the previous few years, will do so in bulk the first opportunity that they can.

The issue is, besides these occasional peaks and valleys, the attendance has really not grown at each park individually. 1997 was the best year ever for the MK with attendance, but that was not influenced by a single new ride was added that year, rather a large pink birthday cake and a major marketing campaign.

Test Track has a huge marketing campaign, but the attendance at Epcot in 1999 was really not significantly higher than in previous years.

WDW has not needed to add capacity in the last 5 years.....all they have needed to do is have something to market.

speck76 said:

The issue is, besides these occasional peaks and valleys, the attendance has really not grown at each park individually. 1997 was the best year ever for the MK with attendance, but that was not influenced by a single new ride was added that year, rather a large pink birthday cake and a major marketing campaign.

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Wasn't the 25th celebration the first 18 month-long celebration? I don't remember any big events prior to this, and the 18-month stuff has been around ever since.

As for the rest, I'm not sure how to respond. So I won't.

To take this in another direction, I have come to the conclusion that a 5th gate at WDW is a very bad idea. Don't worry, I will connect this back to Speck's point.

Right now the average family of 4 can "do" any of the 4 parks in one day. What I mean by this is that they should be able to experience all of the attractions they wanted to, catch a parade, eat a couple of meals and watch the nighttime show. The one anomaly in this is Animal Kingdom, it is a 1/2 to 3/4 day park at this time. So if each park can be experienced to the satisfaction of the average family of 4 in one day, then that family can have a complete WDW experience in a 4 day vacation. And all of us die hards that need to experience all of our favorites things numerous times in a vacation can do it all in an 8 day trip.:lol:

If Disney adds a 5th gate to WDW these numbers climb to 5 and 9 at the minumum. Meaning that most folks who only want to go for a 4 day trip will leave feeling somewhat dissapointed that they did not get to see and do everything they wanted to. While you can argue that this is a good thing because it will entice people to return to get the rest of the experience, I would argue that just as many people would feel a bit ripped off that they spent so much money and weren't able to experience everything that the parks had to offer. Add to this the need for more busses to service the 5th gate and their impact on local traffic as well as wait times at the bus stops and the potential level of dissatisfaction could climb.

Originally posted by Speck76
If it takes 8-10 hours to do everything at the Magic Kingdom, and this number stays consistant, the only addtional capacity is created by new guests. On the other hand, if new attractions are added to the MK, and with the additions the MK would take 13-15 hours to complete, (Yet the MK is only open 11-12 hours on the average day), guests would need to either stay an extra part of another day (creating that many more admissions on that day, which would be in addition to the guests already visiting that day, which would in turn require more capacity) Or they may be futher inclined to visit the parks again at a later date, but since they were not able to see everything, that date may be sooner than it otherwise would have been.

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This would result in the exact same problem as adding a 5th gate would. Once again, us die hards would have no problem expending the length of our vacations to give ample time to experience it all. I have never heard anyone on here complaining about having to spend more time at the World. :lol:

However, most people, even many of us, seem to have an image of the company as being money-grubbing and out to fleece the guests in every imaginable way. By creating more to do than can be experienced by the aforementioned family of 4 in 4 days, Disney would run the risk of alienating some guests by making them feel that they are being "cheated" out of seeing everything in a reasonable amount of time. I don't think that this is a reasonable way of viewing the situation, but having worked retail for 12 years I would not be surprised if a fair number of people did react this way to such a scenario.

Ultimately, as much as we like to complain about not getting new attractions fast enough and about the loss of existing attractions, I think there is definitely a point of diminishing returns for Disney when it comes to the number of attractions per park. This also supports the notion that there should only be a certain number of E-Tickets per park. Since they tend to have much longer wait times there are only some many of them that you can do in one trip to the park. There needs to be "lesser" attractions in the park as well to absorb capacity and fill out the guests day in the park.

So as much as I would like there to be 5 (or more) parks, each with 10+ E-Ticket rides, I think it is in Disney's best interests to leave things pretty much as they are. Only swapping old rides for new and maybe adding 1-2 new lands with one E-Ticket each to Animal Kingdom.

Something else to add into the mix.
Yes, TDR has to add rides to improve capacity.
Yes, WDW has to add or replace rides to attract guests.

BOTH circumstances exist at Disneyland.

Disneyland is in the process of expanding it's capacity by opening their new Buzz Lightyear ride and re-opening the Submarine Voyage. Why? Because the park can't handle a full load of guests. Pressler/Harriss' poor planning put that park into a situation where on a busy day, you can hardly walk through the park. Why? The queues are full, everyone has a Fastpass for something or other, and now people are milling about in the pathways, waiting for the chance to ride something. The solution: add rides to increase capacity. (It reminds me of Rollercoaster Tycoon. If you get too many guests in an area, they get unhappy and complain "It's too crowded here!")

Also, Disneyland, like the Tokyo parks, is heavily dependent on local guests. Think about it. Disneyland has in the neighborhood of 500,000 annual passholders. Half a freakin million of them. The dependance on these guests is so great, it is important that the park offer new attractions to keep them coming. Sometimes it works, like with Indy, and sometimes it fails, like Pooh.

The mistake made out there, in my mind, is that they tried to move to a more WDW-like model. Create a large resort that will become a vacation destination for the world, thereby lessening the importance of APs and the need to cater to them. So they built DCA, Downtown Disney, and the Grand Californian. Didn't work. Very few people who normally visit WDW said, "Wow! Let's go out the the new Disneyland Resort! It looks a great as WDW!" Didn't happen. What did happen was that the same number of guests as before went to the resort, only now the guests were split between the two parks...and not evenly.

Now, they are building new rides for capacity at Disneyland, and building rides at DCA in order to market the park and increase it's popularity.

Boy, did I just ramble or what? :hammer:

I just want to say there is a reason why Magic Kingdom in WDW is the number one attended park in the world.

Comparing TDR to WDW is not comparing apples to apples, at all.

Pixie Duster said:

I just want to say there is a reason why Magic Kingdom in WDW is the number one attended park in the world.

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Nope.
Tokyo Disneyland surpasses MK by an average of 2 to 3 million guests per year.

Lee said:

Nope.
Tokyo Disneyland surpasses MK by an average of 2 to 3 million guests per year.

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Ok my bad.... I could swear all the amusement business magazines stated worldwide, if not then definately MK is number one in the nation.

pisco said:

To take this in another direction, I have come to the conclusion that a 5th gate at WDW is a very bad idea. .

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I could not agree more!

Pixie Duster said:

I just want to say there is a reason why Magic Kingdom in WDW is the number one attended park in the world.

Comparing TDR to WDW is not comparing apples to apples, at all.

Ok my bad.... I could swear all the amusement business magazines stated worldwide, if not then definately MK is number one in the nation.

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Yes, the MK is the number one visited park in the country, sometimes swapping with DL....what is your point?

Comparing WDW to TDR is not apples to apples, so why is it so acceptable for the loudmouths to whine and complain the OLC is willing to spend tons of money on the park, meanwhile, in their words only, WDW gets screwed. :hammer:

Exactly!

The point is WDW does not get screwed, in my opinion.

And at this point in time a 5th park would be dumb.

HauntedPirate said:

Wasn't the 25th celebration the first 18 month-long celebration? I don't remember any big events prior to this, and the 18-month stuff has been around ever since.

As for the rest, I'm not sure how to respond. So I won't.

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No....in 1992 they did a 20th anniversary celebration, which 20 new attractions property-wide (most were at MGM, but this also included Spectromagic, Splash Mt.......)

Pixie Duster said:

Exactly!

The point is WDW does not get screwed, in my opinion.

And at this point in time a 5th park would be dumb.

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I agree....but most don't. I think many people think with their heart, or they don't think at all......they just see what Tokyo has to do, and they want WDW to be handled in the same fashion.

Pixie Duster said:

The point is WDW does not get screwed, in my opinion.

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Oh, I agree.
I often find myself jealous of TDL's budgets, but only in a "Boy, I could blue-sky some amazing stuff for WDW with that cash" kind of way.