News Disney CEO Bob Chapek suggests price hikes are coming to the parks thanks to guest demand

Disstevefan1

Disstevefan1

Well-Known Member
DCLcruiser said:
I just paid $862 for 3 days (2 people)...no hopper, etc. I get wanting to lower ticket sales and so you have to increase prices, but jeez.
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BobbyThanksYou.jpg
 
U

UnPocoLoco

Member
Sirwalterraleigh said:
As a DVC, how do you feel about paying variable, full price for each day In said parks?

Is that what you signed for?
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DVC here. Held on to APs and they’re up for renewal. I’m in the camp of let them go, Disney has pushed me into wanting to explore vacations elsewhere. My wife is in fomo that we may never get APs again. We have plans to go until 2070 so this is a little premature but the value for me is vanishing. I do enjoy the resorts still.
 
Sir_Cliff

Sir_Cliff

Well-Known Member
hopemax said:
I've said before, I don't get the sense that Disney's management team, going back to post-Wells Eisner has long-term confidence in Disney's product no matter what they say on camera. I think they avoided adding additional US parks or a 3rd Resort to focus on China, because they also keep expecting the domestic market to tighten up at some point, making the investment pointless. It's not just *us* sitting around wondering how long they can keep this up. IMO, there was genuine surprise coming from Chapek over how strong future bookings remain. However, the last 3 years has definitely shown how emotionally reactive people are about a litany of things, not just Disney vacations. Also, if you look around there are places where people have pulled back, just not yet on travel. We're getting a reprieve on energy based on how much demand pulled back recently, but supply is still going to be a concern as long as the war continues and climate change does its thing. That demand will creep back up, because people still want all the things, but I expect we're going to be in an annoying set of economic bunny hills until we get some clarity on the global geo-political situation. Including, our own country.

The earnings call, tipped their hand that they think they can just turn the AP spigot back on whenever they feel they might need to, but there is a lot of AP rage building up to replace all that pent-up demand. How this is all going to turn out in 5 years? 🤷‍♀️
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This is very much my impression.

Makes me think of my very brief and failed attempt at a business degree and the first year course activities involving how you manage businesses with significant fixed costs and variable demand. It doesn't seem strange to me that all the people running the company with their business degrees are looking at their parks and resorts through that lens rather than through the lens of building more and more capacity to cope with peak demand. Honestly, they're doing all the things we were taught including variable pricing and staffing, taking certain things off-line, etc.

My impression is also that they are surprised at how effective they have been at eliminating the slow season while demand across the board has continued to grow to a point where they have high season all the time and struggle to meet it. Looking through the business lens, though, I can also see why they are cautious to make bold moves in terms of expanding capacity and thus fixed costs.
 
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DCLcruiser

DCLcruiser

Well-Known Member
eliza61nyc

eliza61nyc

Well-Known Member
dreday3 said:
Hi.
I'm going until we don't want to anymore. Maybe after next trip, maybe after next 10, no clue.

And when we stop going, you won't find me here complaining about the people who are still choosing to go...because that would be weird.
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That's what they are really mad at. That people still want to go. So they usually end by saying we're stupid or some equivalent
 
Joel

Joel

Well-Known Member
Andrew C said:
Their long term strategy has sucked for a while. It been building for years. Sirens. Sirens. Sirens. But ignored.
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And defended by the cheerleaders.

hopemax said:
The earnings call, tipped their hand that they think they can just turn the AP spigot back on whenever they feel they might need to, but there is a lot of AP rage building up to replace all that pent-up demand.
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I'm not sure they're wrong, though. Their customer base as a whole has proven itself to have almost no self-control or backbone, no matter how they feel at any particular moment.
 
Sir_Cliff

Sir_Cliff

Well-Known Member
montyz81 said:
The quiet part is the part that investors like, pushing up the stock price, basically filling up his own pockets. IBM used to do the same thing. Look at where they are now, barely an afterthought in the world of cloud applications and services.
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The fact that the current economic model requires a company like Disney not just to be profitable but increasingly profitable quarter over quarter is also part of this equation.

I never quite understand when fans gleefully celebrate Disney's share price going down when they are making money hand over fist as what do they think this will push Disney corporate to do? It certainly won't be to ease-up on price hikes and fix the audio-animatronics on Splash to make guests feel happier. Instead, it will just push them to ring more and more profit out of the parks to keep their big investors happy and get the stock price back on track.
 
EPCOT-O.G.

EPCOT-O.G.

Well-Known Member
drumbum67 said:
Everyone knows that businesses have two possible strategies when demand is high. Increase prices to lower demand. Or increase capacity to meet demand. It’s just so incredibly frustrating to see a company that thrives on goodwill focusing on the former and paying so little attention to the latter.

It seems to me that this will help drive short term profits, but they’re creating a very unsustainable bubble.
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I sympathize, but there is a real, tangible cost associated with increasing capacity, especially with how long and costly new projects are. In fact, if you look back, you could argue that most construction projects in the last two decades have done nothing to truly increase capacity, but rather, replaced existing attractions in a way that had a negligible (if not negative) impact on the overall capacity. It's much cheaper (and beneficial from a purely financial standpoint) to just increase prices to adjust to demand, rather than building another $300M attraction to "increase" capacity.
 

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