News Disney CFO Hugh Johnston Says Dynamic Pricing Is Coming to the Parks

[John park hopper]

I guess Disney does not care when people go and come home and tell friends Disney sucks and a portion of those friends decide not to go -----great PR Disney

 

[WorldExplorer]

Not saying this is going to happen... but I can see at least 1 way it could help the guest...

Lets say they are currently at the hub and are looking for lunch. While browsing menus in the app to decide where to go, they see that Cosmic Rays lunch is 10% more expensive than Columbia Harbor house. So they go to CHH.

In the background, the reason Cosmic Rays is more expensive is because the kitchen is backed up, while CHH has readily available capacity.

The guest (assuming they didn't really care what restaurant) will get their food faster and potentially at the same cost as they would have if dynamic pricing was not in effect.

It could be used as a crowd control metric.

Edit: Also Mr. IAAPA has been saying this is coming for awhile https://forums.wdwmagic.com/search/6023322/?q=dynamic&c[users]=lentesta&o=relevance

The other side of that;

1. Cosmic Ray's might have the food you actually want. If I want to eat a burger, Columbia Harbor House being cheaper doesn't help. Similarly, what about stuff like refillable drinks, which are only available at a few quick services?

2. Even more walking. In your example you're about equal distance from everything, but what if I'm in Tomorrowland and Pecos Bills is cheaper than Cosmic Ray's and the only other option for a burger? No one wants to be pushed to walk across the park to save money. This also potentially nullifies the positive of waiting in a shorter line as you're still spending that time not eating.

3. What if one isn't busy for a very good reason; what if Restaurant O'saurus, Pizza-fari, and Satuli Canteen are busy because the other Animal Kingdom places are outdoors and it's raining? Why should a guest need to pay more to avoid the rain?

4. Most of Disney's quick services are hugely thematically different. If someone wants to go to the quick service with the talking alien or the Toy Story one or whatever, price directing them away is just taking away the fun of eating in a unique place.

This only helps if you don't care what you eat, don't care where you eat, and don't care how long it takes to get there.

 

[Disstevefan1]

I was watching a YouTube
2900 percent rise from 1971 to 2015 LOL.
THATS 10 years ago!!

 

[Tha Realest]

Dynamic as in price changing daily based on no predetermined or published price schedule.

Exactly. At a certain date towards the end of the calendar year you have a fixed price understanding of what a day ticket or rack rate would be for a hotel room for the following year. Now, there may be a discount that lowers that rate, or a special ticket offer, but that $179 ticket price to MK for a certain date remains fixed throughout the year.

That is, until now (or imminently).

 

[Purduevian]

The other side of that;

1. Cosmic Ray's might have the food you actually want. If I want to each a burger, Columbia Harbor House being cheaper doesn't help. Similarly, what about stuff like refillable drinks, which are only available at a few quick services?

2. Even more walking. In your example you're about equal distance from everything, but what if I'm in Tomorrowland and Pecos Bills is cheaper than Cosmic Ray's and the only other option for a burger? No one wants to be pushed to walk across the park to save money. This also potentially nullifies the positive of waiting in a shorter line as you're still spending that time not eating.

3. What if one isn't busy for a very good reason; what if Restaurant O'saurus, Pizza-fari, and Satuli Canteen are busy because the other Animal Kingdom places are outdoors and it's raining? Why should a guest need to pay more to avoid the rain?

4. Most of Disney's quick services are hugely thematically different. If someone wants to go to the quick service with the talking alien or the Toy Story one or whatever, price directing them away is just taking away the fun or eating in a unique place.

This only helps if you don't care what you eat, don't care where you eat, and don't care how long it takes to get there.

I was giving 1 very very specific scenario in which this could actually benefit the customer. Of course if you change the scenario things go south quick...

 

[Tha Realest]

• Guest Reaction. Certainly won't be good. Even the dusters and cupcake brigade can't defend this.

Oh it happened on page 3. I’m still catching up but we’ll invariably hear “Hey, look, everyone is doing this” soon.

 

[HauntedPirate]

Oh it happened on page 3. I’m still catching up but we’ll invariably hear “Hey, look, everyone is doing this” soon.

"Everyone else is doing this!"
"Diznee iz a bizness!"
"They have to make money!"
"There's value in it to meeeee!!!!!"

(Did I get them all?)

 

[GhostHost1000]

"Everyone else is doing this!"
"Diznee iz a bizness!"
"They have to make money!"
"There's value in it to meeeee!!!!!"

(Did I get them all?)

Parks are at capacity!

 

[KDM31091]

The more I think about it the more gross it is they are essentially saying they want to squeeze guests for all they’re worth because, by Disney’s own fault, there is nothing major new in the parks right now and people will logically delay trips.

 

[Disstevefan1]

"Everyone else is doing this!"
"Diznee iz a bizness!"
"They have to make money!"
"There's value in it to meeeee!!!!!"

(Did I get them all?)

You forgot "Unprecedented demand!

 

[jah4955]

They're already doing this with tickets, hotels, and LL. Food feels like this next one to hit, though I can't see how that might go over well. It's really difficult for families to budget when a hot dog is $7 in April and $12 in June.

I apologize if someone said this already (6 pages in), but making parks like airfares is robbing motivation instead of adding it. More stress on top of the already existing-stress of trying to plan a vacation (nm all the money being spent)

 

[Alice a]

The FOMO thing doesn’t really apply, IMHO. I just spent a stupid amount of $ on 2 front row tickets for a band who only tours every few years.

As someone who has made quite a few last-minute WDW trips, including this year, well… the parks are always there.

There is no real FOMO like with airlines or shows where you may be going for a specific event with no leeway and they have you over a barrel.

I’ll just skip going there if I happen to be in town and prices are surging

 

[castlecake2.0]

I can’t find any articles on it right now, but years ago during peak times they would print little "coupons" on your receipt that offered 10% merch or food discounts if you ate or shopped outside of specific times, I could see something like that happen again

 

[MrPromey]

Congratulations Disney on modeling your hospitality business based on United Airlines!

Please tell me how guests will love the increased costs and higher prices!

"I would like to not think about it that way, to be honest with you. But, yeah, similar." - Hugh Johnston, Walt Disney Company Senior Executive Vice President And Chief Financial Officer

I love how he prefaces the admission with the "but lets not talk about it in such dirty ways" type talk even though it's exactly what they're doing.

"This is basically just bringing it in the park. But done in a way that obviously, it doesn't create guest experience issues or consumer negative feedback... and frankly so far in Paris, we haven't seen any."

Translation: We have to be sneaky about it so guests don't catch on.

 

[MrPromey]

Is there anyone left who doesn’t see what the problem is here?

Apparently there are a lot of people.

... and they all work for Disney.

 

[Casper Gutman]

May not care for it, but it makes sense from a ticketing standpoint or hotels which I assume they will combine with the already in place surge pricing. Where it makes no sense and they will catch a ton of grief is if the actually try and apply this to areas like food or merch.

Seems like this will very much benefit booking early and punish last minute trips which is certainly a choice. It was also interesting that they mentioned they haven't run into any real complaints in Paris. For those that have been in the last year, did you even notice it? Did prices swing wildly or are they on a pretty tight range?

Universal started doing this with hotel rates in 2025. It’s unbelievably awful. It makes planning nearly impossible and obliterates flexibility. It’s almost the entire reason I started staying at Disney again after more than 15 years of staying almost entirely at Uni.

 

[Tha Realest]

What this tells me more than anything is their levers aren’t as useful as they once were. So instead of conjuring up another revenue stream (tiered pricing, LL) or cutting operational costs…here we are.

 

[larryz]

I have context around this.

 

[Animaniac93-98]

From what I can find online, DLP's example of dynamic pricing only applies to 1-day park tickets

That may be why its been "well received" because anyone buying an AP, hotel package (on or off site), 3rd party resale ticket etc would not be affected.

Hotel packages can get more expensive if you book closer to arrival, but that was true prior to Disney taking full ownership of the resort in 2017 when early booking offers gave you the best deals.

 

[CAV]

My guess is that they're taking the cruise line approach to hotels and tickets.

• Book Early and get the lowest price for that calendar date. (This is not the same as a discount rate for booking early, you're basically paying what the minimum that the room or ticket cost on the legacy rate chart.)
• Takes advantage of FOMO and locks guests into their dates.
• Canceling or moving dates penalizes guests and moves them to the current price points which will be higher.
• Allows for Surge Pricing. Some type of convention or event or whatever, guests are paying more instantly.
• Allows for better tracking of crowds.

Unknowns:

• APs and their future.
• Discounts and promotions. I don't think anyone pays rack rate anymore (Unless they get a dining plan) and everyone relies on discounts and promotions for hotel rooms.
• Guest Reaction. Certainly won't be good. Even the dusters and cupcake brigade can't defend this.
• Crowds. Probably down because this will just push away last minute travelers, locals, AP holders, and DVC members.
• Perception of the company. Well that's known already. They suck.

My guess is you are giving them the benefit of the doubt when they have repeatedly showed they don't deserve it.