I don't give a you know what. People are still traveling to Florida. MCO saw a record number of travelers over Memorial Day weekend. Yet people avoided the parks.
Face it, people are not interested in the prices Universal or Disney is changing right now.
People avoided the parks is laughable.
They’re still at an insane level of attendance, they’re just not at the records spurred by condensed vacations.
The parks were too crowded (they knew that, just as much as we knew that). Their publicly stated strategy was to raise prices while not sacrificing too much attendance.
If they want to bring back attendance, they easily could through lower prices, and to everyone who scoffs at how bad the parks are currently…
The parks are far more enjoyable now than they were pre-covid. Not even close. People are willing to pay a premium for that, but there’s also a limit. Simple supply and demand. This is a fundamental disagreement, because most on here decry that the parks are now terrible.
Obviously, it’s difficult because they aren’t adding new draws in the short term, but I’m very curious to see how Epic performs in 25’ and beyond.
Pricing is THE reason the parks are decreasing in attendance coupled with larger economic trends.
We’ll see this weekend, but there’s only three directions they can really go from here:
1) Do nothing because revenue is down so don’t add more costs
2) Spend a lot to bring new draws and improve parks to sustain increased prices
3) Spend a lot to add capacity which brings new guests while enabling the parks to absorb crowds associated with more sustainable pricing
2 and 3 obviously have a lot of overlap, but there’s a difference between retheming Buzz to Wreck it Ralph or adding an attractive low capacity ride vs adding a new land with people-eating attractions.
I personally think sky-high prices are silly because it excludes a lot of people, and there’s a feedback loop in the parks. People who go to the parks go to the theater, they buy merch at home, they bring their friends and get them hooked in the eco-system, etc.
So I think there’s long-term value in a lower cost of attendance, but part of the issue is the parks physically are not built to sustain that.
California’s parks are better built for that, but DCA has ridiculous lines for rides like Monster’s Inc (largely spurred by Genie+), so it’s very difficult to employ that strategy there, especially since the hotel limitations also make it more difficult.
I’ve seen very few Disney promotions/ads compared to pre-pandemic levels. They’ve largely been coasting, which we can all agree is bad, but regardless, you don’t need an MBA or 10 hours a day on WDWMagic to understand their growth/pricing strategies were unsustainable, so the victory lap is silly.
What matters is how they proceed this weekend.
