If you've followed my posts over the years, you know I have been a huge supporter of increased ticket prices, particularly during the most crowded times. Crowd control is important in maintaining a positive guest experience and preventing Disney Parks from becoming a "beating" to visit. Disney finally agrees. The parks are too crowded and something needs to be done.
Demand Based Pricing is the only solution to Disney's current crowd problems. As you've all heard by now, Disney is seriously considering moving to dynamic ticket pricing, depending on congestion. You want to go during a popular time like Christmas? You'll pay more for your ticket. It already happens at their hotels of course and we see this in many industries like Hotels, Airlines, Uber, and Tollways.
Let me be clear - I am in no way supporting Disney's path to get here, but we are here nonetheless. I simply recognize that this is a possible solution in the interim.
Ideally, Disney would have expanded over the last 10 years, instead of squeezing margin and packing guests into its aging parks. Iger really ignored WDW and it's a shame. They are making some progress in expansion with the recently announced Toy Story, Stars Wars, and Avatar, but it's too late to help today.
Objectively, demand based pricing makes sense in the parks. I think Disney's goal is clear...spread the attendance more evenly throughout the year and remove the seasonality of guests as much as possible. They also recognize that constantly jam packed parks lower guest satisfaction and repeat visits.
My fear is that they will not only increase prices during peak times, but they'll still allow too many people inside the parks, despite higher prices. I think Disney is in store for a surprise. Increasing ticket prices 20-30% during the holidays will not be enough to deter guests. What we'll end up seeing is similar crowd levels and we'll end up paying more to visit.
My hope is the demand based pricing not only deters guests from going, but it also makes Disney comfortable with allowing fewer guests in while still meeting revenue projections. I think Disney and guests will be surprised exactly how much pricing needs to be raised to make people think twice. Steady price increases have not worked thus far. I think we are talking double, or more.
The only way this works is something like this for example. Today, we allow 50,000 people to enter the MK. We are going to do two things: Reduce that number to 40,000 AND increase ticket prices 30%. If you only increase ticket prices 30%, you might still have 50,000 people buy tickets. That accomplishes nothing. If this is the path they go down, I am not in favor of it. I don't think they can offer "market pricing" where pure supply and demand determine prices, but that might be interesting as well.
What do you think about dynamic pricing?
Demand Based Pricing is the only solution to Disney's current crowd problems. As you've all heard by now, Disney is seriously considering moving to dynamic ticket pricing, depending on congestion. You want to go during a popular time like Christmas? You'll pay more for your ticket. It already happens at their hotels of course and we see this in many industries like Hotels, Airlines, Uber, and Tollways.
Let me be clear - I am in no way supporting Disney's path to get here, but we are here nonetheless. I simply recognize that this is a possible solution in the interim.
Ideally, Disney would have expanded over the last 10 years, instead of squeezing margin and packing guests into its aging parks. Iger really ignored WDW and it's a shame. They are making some progress in expansion with the recently announced Toy Story, Stars Wars, and Avatar, but it's too late to help today.
Objectively, demand based pricing makes sense in the parks. I think Disney's goal is clear...spread the attendance more evenly throughout the year and remove the seasonality of guests as much as possible. They also recognize that constantly jam packed parks lower guest satisfaction and repeat visits.
My fear is that they will not only increase prices during peak times, but they'll still allow too many people inside the parks, despite higher prices. I think Disney is in store for a surprise. Increasing ticket prices 20-30% during the holidays will not be enough to deter guests. What we'll end up seeing is similar crowd levels and we'll end up paying more to visit.
My hope is the demand based pricing not only deters guests from going, but it also makes Disney comfortable with allowing fewer guests in while still meeting revenue projections. I think Disney and guests will be surprised exactly how much pricing needs to be raised to make people think twice. Steady price increases have not worked thus far. I think we are talking double, or more.
The only way this works is something like this for example. Today, we allow 50,000 people to enter the MK. We are going to do two things: Reduce that number to 40,000 AND increase ticket prices 30%. If you only increase ticket prices 30%, you might still have 50,000 people buy tickets. That accomplishes nothing. If this is the path they go down, I am not in favor of it. I don't think they can offer "market pricing" where pure supply and demand determine prices, but that might be interesting as well.
What do you think about dynamic pricing?
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