Is there a "typical or average" WDW visitor/family?

righttrack

righttrack

Well-Known Member
A lot of it depends on where you live and what nearby vacation options are available to you. When you look at the Northeast US, your nearby vacation options are (in Summer only) NYC, Cape Cod, Jersey Shore, Maine Shore for example. When you look at a week's vacation in those areas, you're expecting to spend $1,500-4,000 in lodging, around $1,200 on food and drink minimum, plus you're going to want to do some things that also cost money. There is little transportation involved because I said it was a nearby vacation, so a 4 hour drive. That's probably your minimum week's vacation for 4 in the northeast, about $2,700-5,200 plus entertainment, plus travel. It's starting to look like WDW is more of a value than we thought it was.

If I compare WDW to an all-inclusive resort in the Caribbean, it actually doesn't compare favorably unless I can get really cheap airfare. The airfare to Orlando is usually cheaper.
 
Astro_Digital

Astro_Digital

Active Member
The average guest, not low income they would never afford a vacation at Disney World.
Disney World is the Worlds Happiest place for those that can afford it.
 
bigrigross

bigrigross

Well-Known Member
Astro_Digital said:
The average guest, not low income they would never afford a vacation at Disney World.
Disney World is the Worlds Happiest place for those that can afford it.
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Well to be fair, there are a lot of vacations I would love to take that are way beyond I could/would want to afford. It comes down to your wants and your needs. When I was a kid, there was no Disney World vacations. Travelling to another state and staying with my moms friends was a vacation or going camping. I didnt even stay in a hotel until I paid for my first one when I got my first job in high school. Family always used motels if we had to stop. But I had fun as a kid.

Point is, not everyone can afford all types of vacations. I will never stay in that underwater hotel that they want 5K a night to do. Should they lower the prices so I can stay there?

Also, the average guest can afford Disney World. The average guest is the one filling the parks everyday. If people want to take their kids, it can be done cheaply. I have helped price a vacation for a friend to stay off property for a week for her and her 4 kids and do all 4 parks and a water park. You just have to save which is something this country doesnt like doing.
 
Disstevefan1

Disstevefan1

Well-Known Member
In my opinion, the average WDW visitor has #1 disposable cash and #2 does not think too much about their actual value for money spent.

I love to visit WDW, but if I think too much about the money spent and the value in return, that reality is not good.
 
jloucks

jloucks

Well-Known Member
lentesta said:
Disney doesn't release their demographic data. But you can glean a lot of it from other sources.

For example, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has data that shows how much the average American household spends on vacations each year, broken out by quintile. Here's that data from 2017, summarized:

View attachment 365073

It's pretty clear that even a day at Disney World for a family of four is going to be beyond the annual budget for the bottom 40% of households. And from Disney's own travel agent media, it's pretty clear they're targeting the top 20%. They're almost certainly targeting the top 10%, 5%, and 1% specifically too.

One interesting thing we got from our (the Unofficial Guide/TouringPlans) surveys is that around 33% of our users' trips involve just adults. That's a higher number than I expected.
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Interesting info! Makes sense that WDW keeps jacking up the prices. They really need to get the mob scene under control in order to appeal to the top 20%. ,,,let alone the top 10% or 1%
 
jaklgreen

jaklgreen

Well-Known Member
Disstevefan1 said:
In my opinion, the average WDW visitor has #1 disposable cash and #2 does not think too much about their actual value for money spent.

I love to visit WDW, but if I think too much about the money spent and the value in return, that reality is not good.
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Value is a personal belief. You can't say that the value is not good for others. If you compare the hours of entertainment from a sporting event or concert with that of Disney, the parks come out ahead.
 
Disstevefan1

Disstevefan1

Well-Known Member
jaklgreen said:
Value is a personal belief. You can't say that the value is not good for others. If you compare the hours of entertainment from a sporting event or concert with that of Disney, the parks come out ahead.
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My post is specifically my opinion as I stated. Excellent point about entertainment from a sporting event or concert. Value is indeed a personal belief, exactly why I personally I try not to think about it when it comes to my visits to WDW.

It just happened to me again when I thought about getting the new Disney streaming service. In my Disney Rationalization brain, the Disney Plus is I think, $69 a year if you pay for the full year in advance. My Disney Rationalization brain went right to work, "that is less than we spend on one sit down meal at WDW, thats worth it, right?
 
D

drizgirl

Well-Known Member
Disstevefan1 said:
My post is specifically my opinion as I stated. Excellent point about entertainment from a sporting event or concert. Value is indeed a personal belief, exactly why I personally I try not to think about it when it comes to my visits to WDW.

It just happened to me again when I thought about getting the new Disney streaming service. In my Disney Rationalization brain, the Disney Plus is I think, $69 a year if you pay for the full year in advance. My Disney Rationalization brain went right to work, "that is less than we spend on one sit down meal at WDW, thats worth it, right?
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It's hard to find anything not "worth it" when you use that standard.
 
Walt Disney1955

Walt Disney1955

Well-Known Member
What is the "average" family? I guess the best way to judge that is the fertility rates in the U.S. I think it is about 1.8 kids per family right now and has been for about 40 years. So.............the average family is, what, 2 kids? Sometimes maybe 1. A bit of a change since 1971 when the average family would have had about 2.5 kids. We are middle class. Not upper middle, not lower middle, probably just middle-middle. We have three kids. Other than the extra kid is that about your "average" Disney family?
 
jaklgreen

jaklgreen

Well-Known Member
Big Phil said:
What is the "average" family? I guess the best way to judge that is the fertility rates in the U.S. I think it is about 1.8 kids per family right now and has been for about 40 years. So.............the average family is, what, 2 kids? Sometimes maybe 1. A bit of a change since 1971 when the average family would have had about 2.5 kids. We are middle class. Not upper middle, not lower middle, probably just middle-middle. We have three kids. Other than the extra kid is that about your "average" Disney family?
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I think that is how Disney sees their average family. You look at all of their ads and you see 2 parents and 2 kids. Heck, even on the cruise ship they pick the family of the day and all of the ones that I have seen have been the 2 adults and 1 boy and 1 girl. I have 2 girls so that rules us out.
 
disneyfireman

disneyfireman

Well-Known Member
Well. They are from Ohio. Next to Florida. Ohio is the state that send most per capita to WDW. I’d say middle class family of 4.
I mean the post card American family is. Mom Dad and 2 kids.
Note: Ohio sends most to Vegas also. It’s the 5th most populous state. So it’s all relative.
 
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Club Cooloholic

Club Cooloholic

Well-Known Member
Big Phil said:
What is the "average" family? I guess the best way to judge that is the fertility rates in the U.S. I think it is about 1.8 kids per family right now and has been for about 40 years. So.............the average family is, what, 2 kids? Sometimes maybe 1. A bit of a change since 1971 when the average family would have had about 2.5 kids. We are middle class. Not upper middle, not lower middle, probably just middle-middle. We have three kids. Other than the extra kid is that about your "average" Disney family?
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I blame car seats. Once you get two in the back you can only fit .5 of a child in the middle. :)
 
Walt Disney1955

Walt Disney1955

Well-Known Member
The funny thing not only about a Disney ad depicting a family of 4 running around the parks but almost any ad for anything out there is that they don`t make a great effort to make them look like one another. Mom and Dad might be blonde or light brown hair while the kids have darker hair and brown eyes. The siblings never look like each other and the kids never look like either parent either. Obviously, this is because the people in the ads are truly not related and are just actors, but I always thought it might look more authentic if it was actually families you saw. Is it just me imagining this or did it seem like in the 1970s they did the authentic families more often............
 
jaklgreen

jaklgreen

Well-Known Member
Big Phil said:
The funny thing not only about a Disney ad depicting a family of 4 running around the parks but almost any ad for anything out there is that they don`t make a great effort to make them look like one another. Mom and Dad might be blonde or light brown hair while the kids have darker hair and brown eyes. The siblings never look like each other and the kids never look like either parent either. Obviously, this is because the people in the ads are truly not related and are just actors, but I always thought it might look more authentic if it was actually families you saw. Is it just me imagining this or did it seem like in the 1970s they did the authentic families more often............
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You should see our family. My kids don't look anything alike, and if you saw us together, you wouldn't know that they were our kids. But I get what you are saying.
 
CP_alum08

CP_alum08

Well-Known Member
eliza61nyc said:
Unfortunately Americans are notorious for not taking vacations. I have managers here that have earned 6 weeks of vacation and are hard pressed to take 2. a lot of them sell their vacation back. we have a lousy ingrained sense of work=worth, so a guy who actually takes all his vacation is seen as a 'slacker"
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I wish I could like this more than once. This is so sad but so true for a lot of Americans. Traveling and vacations are just not seen as a priority for many.
 

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