Found this at savedisney and at miceage and thought I'd share.
Plummeting Numbers
As summer kicks in to high gear at Disneyland, the execs out in the Team Disney Anaheim (TDA) building behind the Park are starting to get a little nervous. Anyone who has visited either Anaheim theme park in the last six weeks has noticed that it hasn't been very crowded this summer. The weak numbers, including the surprisingly tepid response to Tower of Terror in May, were first written off with the "wait until school lets out" excuse. California Adventure (DCA) has been no stranger to the "Wait until..." line when it comes to explaining away its low attendance figures. But schools have been out for weeks now, the national media have been running stories announcing that this is the busiest summer travel season in American history, and still the traditional summer crowds have not materialized.
The first real sign of attendance trouble came three weeks ago when on a sunny Saturday in mid June Disneyland had its first Saturday attendance total that was below 40,000 customers in 20 years. For the last two decades, even during the very slow and chilly months of January and February, Disneyland has been able to tally up at least 40,000 visitors on Saturdays throughout the year. But on that Saturday in June, Disneyland only had 39,000 customers come through the gates.
A couple weeks after that shockingly low Saturday tally came in, Disneyland and DCA had a very slow 4th of July. Instead of the 68,000 to 72,000 people that have historically packed Disneyland on the 4th, the attendance planners glumly looked into their dimming crystal ball and decided that Disneyland would only pull in 57,000 people this year, even though the 4th was on a Sunday this year and everyone had the next day off. DCA was given a very conservative 4th of July attendance estimate of 20,000. Those low attendance estimates had Anaheim old timers shocked, and the kicker came when Disneyland planned for a regular Midnight closing time instead of the 2 am closing time it had historically offered on the 4th of July for decades.
As if the low attendance estimates weren't disappointing enough, both Parks failed to even pull in their lowered estimates on the 4th this year. At the end of the night when the turnstile clicks were all tallied up, Disneyland pulled in just a few hundred people over the 50,000 mark, and DCA barely managed to get 16,500 people in for the day. Those two number combined don't even equal the 4th of July attendances Disneyland used to pull in on its own before DCA was built, and they certainly don't bode well for an expanded "Resort" trying to build an even larger customer base. And those 4th of July numbers came after a very slow July 2nd and 3rd, where Disneyland barely pulled in 40,000 each day and DCA remained in the mid teens. (Even with a notable increase in Japanese tour group bookings.)
Looking at the data, it's been clearly obvious from the demographics that locals have been staying away this summer in record numbers. And what has TDA execs worried is that Anaheim is now reaping the seeds sown by three years in a row of previously unheard of summer discount promotions that slashed ticket prices for locals and/or let their kids in to DCA for free. Those summertime discounts were at first aimed squarely at DCA, especially with the free children's tickets, and they were paired up with the now infamous entertainment promotions like Rockin' The Bay from '02 or the tacky XGames from '03.
But as the day-tripping locals stay away in droves this summer while the SoCal economy remains in very healthy condition, TDA is coming to the realization that those previous big summer discounts and marketing gimmicks are coming home to roost. Locals seem to now be trained to expect discounts at Anaheim's Disney parks, even during the summer months when Disneyland historically never offered them. And since those discounts have failed to materialize this summer, the day-tripping locals have stayed away so far.
Plummeting Numbers
As summer kicks in to high gear at Disneyland, the execs out in the Team Disney Anaheim (TDA) building behind the Park are starting to get a little nervous. Anyone who has visited either Anaheim theme park in the last six weeks has noticed that it hasn't been very crowded this summer. The weak numbers, including the surprisingly tepid response to Tower of Terror in May, were first written off with the "wait until school lets out" excuse. California Adventure (DCA) has been no stranger to the "Wait until..." line when it comes to explaining away its low attendance figures. But schools have been out for weeks now, the national media have been running stories announcing that this is the busiest summer travel season in American history, and still the traditional summer crowds have not materialized.
The first real sign of attendance trouble came three weeks ago when on a sunny Saturday in mid June Disneyland had its first Saturday attendance total that was below 40,000 customers in 20 years. For the last two decades, even during the very slow and chilly months of January and February, Disneyland has been able to tally up at least 40,000 visitors on Saturdays throughout the year. But on that Saturday in June, Disneyland only had 39,000 customers come through the gates.
A couple weeks after that shockingly low Saturday tally came in, Disneyland and DCA had a very slow 4th of July. Instead of the 68,000 to 72,000 people that have historically packed Disneyland on the 4th, the attendance planners glumly looked into their dimming crystal ball and decided that Disneyland would only pull in 57,000 people this year, even though the 4th was on a Sunday this year and everyone had the next day off. DCA was given a very conservative 4th of July attendance estimate of 20,000. Those low attendance estimates had Anaheim old timers shocked, and the kicker came when Disneyland planned for a regular Midnight closing time instead of the 2 am closing time it had historically offered on the 4th of July for decades.
As if the low attendance estimates weren't disappointing enough, both Parks failed to even pull in their lowered estimates on the 4th this year. At the end of the night when the turnstile clicks were all tallied up, Disneyland pulled in just a few hundred people over the 50,000 mark, and DCA barely managed to get 16,500 people in for the day. Those two number combined don't even equal the 4th of July attendances Disneyland used to pull in on its own before DCA was built, and they certainly don't bode well for an expanded "Resort" trying to build an even larger customer base. And those 4th of July numbers came after a very slow July 2nd and 3rd, where Disneyland barely pulled in 40,000 each day and DCA remained in the mid teens. (Even with a notable increase in Japanese tour group bookings.)
Looking at the data, it's been clearly obvious from the demographics that locals have been staying away this summer in record numbers. And what has TDA execs worried is that Anaheim is now reaping the seeds sown by three years in a row of previously unheard of summer discount promotions that slashed ticket prices for locals and/or let their kids in to DCA for free. Those summertime discounts were at first aimed squarely at DCA, especially with the free children's tickets, and they were paired up with the now infamous entertainment promotions like Rockin' The Bay from '02 or the tacky XGames from '03.
But as the day-tripping locals stay away in droves this summer while the SoCal economy remains in very healthy condition, TDA is coming to the realization that those previous big summer discounts and marketing gimmicks are coming home to roost. Locals seem to now be trained to expect discounts at Anaheim's Disney parks, even during the summer months when Disneyland historically never offered them. And since those discounts have failed to materialize this summer, the day-tripping locals have stayed away so far.
1st trip I'm so excited!
