IanDLBZF
Well-Known Member
Said nobody I knew, ever.
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Crowds are down? Curious about the claims . . .
- Thread starter KeithVH
- Start date
jlsHouston
Well-Known Member
So you're for real? That first post about the poor slobs with their subway sandwiches and Doritos wasn't sarcasm?
GhostHost1000
Premium Member
Don't take offense to it....I'm a single parent as well and still take my child often. The point I was making was it is much harder and more expensive to vacate at Disney than it once was. The price increases over the past 10 years has been exponential and way more than the average median income has gone up
ChipNDale79
Active Member
Last year we were sitting at the tables out where that little food market is right out outside of the Hall of Presidents. We saw a family of 5 eating their own lunch they had brought in with them, they didnt appear to be slobs at all, in fact it appeared they had a nanny with them.
The cost of average food at WDW in insanely high, I do not blame anyone that decides to skip paying their insane prices for mediocre food.
You have no idea where these people spend their money, you're making big assumptions that just because they brought in food that they are not spending money on other things in the park.
lentesta
Premium Member
More "people in line" data for other parks, June 2016, 10 am to 5 pm (so not counting anyone who came to AK just for the evening stuff):
MK: Up around 17%
EP: +5%
DHS: No change from 2015
AK: -3%
WDW: +9%
My first thought was that looks like a 10% cut in capacity/staffing, coupled with a 1% decline in attendance. Again, we could be totally wrong on this.
MK: Up around 17%
EP: +5%
DHS: No change from 2015
AK: -3%
WDW: +9%
My first thought was that looks like a 10% cut in capacity/staffing, coupled with a 1% decline in attendance. Again, we could be totally wrong on this.
bhg469
Well-Known Member
In my experience my, company, who is a company that is 100% in the business of entertainment just this year had their first wage increases in the past 6 years. Yes I could have gotten another job but every other position in my field was paying the same and had less benefits.
I definitely did not keep up with their price increases. It is a luxury but they are going to back off. They pushed too hard and its finally hurting them.
ToTBellHop
Well-Known Member
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ChipNDale79
Active Member
Do you think more people would spend more if the quality of the product was better?
I don't consider myself "thrifty" as compared to others, but I stopped buying T-Shirts at disney awhile ago.
The cheap T-Shirts they sell don't last long. Over the past 10 years I've puchashed maybe 10 or so T-Shirts, only one has lasted longer than a year or so. Coincidentally its probably the first one i bought.
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SorcererMC
Well-Known Member
This morning I'm looking at Orlando tourism specifically, and most WDW demographic info is vague, but using the most recent 2016 TEA report as a guide, recall that for 2015:
Disney revenue growth overall was up 9.9% w/ attendance growth an est. 6% (both WDW and Disneyland) vs Universal revenue (again, both coasts) growth up est 20.5% w/ attendance growth at 9%.
The 2015 TEA report states: "continued stagnation of middle-class incomes, which may already be leading to a bifurcation of the market. This raises questions about the sustainability of recent ticket-price increases as well as the positioning of some parks relative to the characteristics of the residents and tourists to major markets,"
The avg FL tourist annual income is roughly $90,000 (may vary by a few thousand each year, increasing in the past few years with a growing number of visitors with median $110,000+).
The median Orange county resident annual income is ~$47,000.
(I haven't seen anything that shows what percentage of Orlando theme park visitors are in-state, but just using this to show the discrepancy of incomes).
Orlando's share of FL leisure travel is 43%, and another 17% for a getaway weekend. 'Theme parks' are the main activity for 85% of intl tourists, but only 50% for domestic tourists. For both domestic and intl tourists, ~30% of travel parties include children (naturally, most will go to the theme parks, and I've only seen an approximate statistic that claims that 1/3 of WDW visitors are adults without children, which is important b/c they have more disposable income).
The takeaway - if Orlando tourism is dropping off at the high-end of spending, there is very little room for the local economy to compensate adequately, and the decrease in attendance by intl and domestic visitors will result in a disproportionate decrease in revenue.
Disney revenue growth overall was up 9.9% w/ attendance growth an est. 6% (both WDW and Disneyland) vs Universal revenue (again, both coasts) growth up est 20.5% w/ attendance growth at 9%.
The 2015 TEA report states: "continued stagnation of middle-class incomes, which may already be leading to a bifurcation of the market. This raises questions about the sustainability of recent ticket-price increases as well as the positioning of some parks relative to the characteristics of the residents and tourists to major markets,"
The avg FL tourist annual income is roughly $90,000 (may vary by a few thousand each year, increasing in the past few years with a growing number of visitors with median $110,000+).
The median Orange county resident annual income is ~$47,000.
(I haven't seen anything that shows what percentage of Orlando theme park visitors are in-state, but just using this to show the discrepancy of incomes).
Orlando's share of FL leisure travel is 43%, and another 17% for a getaway weekend. 'Theme parks' are the main activity for 85% of intl tourists, but only 50% for domestic tourists. For both domestic and intl tourists, ~30% of travel parties include children (naturally, most will go to the theme parks, and I've only seen an approximate statistic that claims that 1/3 of WDW visitors are adults without children, which is important b/c they have more disposable income).
The takeaway - if Orlando tourism is dropping off at the high-end of spending, there is very little room for the local economy to compensate adequately, and the decrease in attendance by intl and domestic visitors will result in a disproportionate decrease in revenue.
Bocabear
Well-Known Member
you do know a spendthrift is someone that spends lots of money, not someone who is thrifty... a spendthrift would never bring their lunch to the park and would have signature dining for every meal...if not a special catered dining experience.
ToTBellHop
Well-Known Member
Sorry--you're right.
ToTBellHop
Well-Known Member
I do. I think Disney did this backwards. They should have freshened the parks and then risen prices like DL did after Carsland opened. Raising prices before at least opening AVATAR feels tone-deaf.
I do agree that the merch is garbage largely although better than 5 years ago (still not good).
Bocabear
Well-Known Member
Eventually it has to catch up to them...they have pushed it to the limit of what people will pay while reducing not only the number of attractions, but also general quality of the experiences...including merchandise and food... Guess it looks good to Wall Street, but they have in my opinion dmaged their brand, and it will cost more to repair it than if they had just kept up with it to begin with.
21stamps
Well-Known Member
Ok so what I see people saying the most is - "in the past 6-15 years".
I just think it's important to remember what this country has been through during that time span. Also to look at the travel industry as a whole, especially in Florida. Travel prices have risen drastically, yes. But they have risen across the board. People ARE spending money again. (Most) People have recovered from the recession. The millennials weren't even hit by it, so you have a new group with money to spend. Gen X'rs who weren't terribly hit were too scared to spend their money previously, and are now spending it.
Because of this prices have risen. To do an accurate and fair comparison you can't just compare WDW today with WDW 10 years ago. You have to compare it against the industry- and when doing so you will realize it's not far off of what everyone else is doing.
I just think it's important to remember what this country has been through during that time span. Also to look at the travel industry as a whole, especially in Florida. Travel prices have risen drastically, yes. But they have risen across the board. People ARE spending money again. (Most) People have recovered from the recession. The millennials weren't even hit by it, so you have a new group with money to spend. Gen X'rs who weren't terribly hit were too scared to spend their money previously, and are now spending it.
Because of this prices have risen. To do an accurate and fair comparison you can't just compare WDW today with WDW 10 years ago. You have to compare it against the industry- and when doing so you will realize it's not far off of what everyone else is doing.
Brad Bishop
Well-Known Member
Same here. I don't buy clothing at Disney because it's expensive and not very good.
It's the same reason I stopped eating on site. It's stupid expensive and not very good. A few years back it was, I thought, pretty good and expensive (I knew I was paying more than normal but the food was good and the atmosphere (being on-site) really helped sell it).
If they brought back the food quality to what it was before, though, I'd still be in the "stupid expensive" thought mode. It's like trying to sell me a good steak but at $300 (not their actual price, just for illustration). It may be a good steak but it's nowhere close to a $300 steak.
ChipNDale79
Active Member
Its pretty fair to compare it to 10 years ago. You're leaving out the fact that in that 10 year span there was a massive recession, yes we've recovered from it, but it did cover a good portion of that 10 year time span. For a long time during that recession, disney continued raising prices while offering very little new things.
I've done the calculations from when my wife and I went on our honeymoon in 2008, that same vacation, exactly the same would have cost us 20%+ more in 2015. That's a massive increase in a short time frame.
Yes we got a great discount in 2009, we got the buy 4 get 3 free plus a $500 gift card, they were almost paying us to go then. Those level of discounts did not continue throughout the recession though.
space42
Well-Known Member
Ok so what I see people saying the most is - "in the past 6-15 years".
I just think it's important to remember what this country has been through during that time span. Also to look at the travel industry as a whole, especially in Florida. Travel prices have risen drastically, yes. But they have risen across the board. People ARE spending money again. (Most) People have recovered from the recession. The millennials weren't even hit by it, so you have a new group with money to spend. Gen X'rs who weren't terribly hit were too scared to spend their money previously, and are now spending it.
Because of this prices have risen. To do an accurate and fair comparison you can't just compare WDW today with WDW 10 years ago. You have to compare it against the industry- and when doing so you will realize it's not far off of what everyone else is doing.
Regardless - the Walt Disney company has never been more profitable.
I am lucky. I live in Florida. I am a life long fan and my first trip was in 1972.
I can afford to go. I am choosing not to. For me - this has nothing to do with the economy , gator attacks, mass murder or any other external forces. I suspect I'm not alone.
Coaster Lover
Well-Known Member
- In the Parks
- No
Fingers crossed that this is all true and yields either steeper discounts or lower crowds when I go in ~12 months...
Brad Bishop
Well-Known Member
That pretty much sums up me, too.
Cue the person who'll say, "Hooray! That leaves more room for me!"
ParentsOf4
Well-Known Member
As I recall, you collect data based on Disney's reported wait times.
Could they be artificially inflating posted wait times more so than in the past?