What strategy? Hasnt Universals attendance risen in the last few years? More people (return visitors) shave off days at Disney to go to Universal or they just simply go to Universal and maybe visit Disney for a day or two.
That's exactly what we do. We *never* used to go to Universal before and now we have to visit there every time.
Disney's strategy of building parks quickly to offset Universal's growth potential has worked. There are plenty of people like me who can't justify staying at Universal but will visit for a day or two while on their Disney vacation.
Universal adding a third theme park will make more guests want to vacation there for their entire trip and not even bother with Disney.
Universal's attendance has sky rocketed with HP but they should have been able to beat DHS and DAK in attendance. I think Universal adding a third park will finally beat a Disney Park for the first time ever.
My point was more about the fact that DHS and DAK were pretty underbuilt with not as much to do as MK or Epcot and hold that stigma to this day. At least we're finally getting things like Avatar and Star Wars but they still need more.
I totally agree with you. DHS and DAK are under built. But, if Universal builds a third park then Disney will no other choice than to enact the *same* strategy of building a park to offset Universal's growth. Otherwise,it will look like Disney has conceded to Universal. And, you know Eisner would have already put the shovel in the ground.
Is Star Wars Land and Avatarland going to be enough to stop Universal *if* they open a third gate?
Yes and no. If you look at the market share numbers since 2009 when Potter opened:
2009 2015
WDW 74.9. 70.0 -4.9
Universal 16.0 23.8. +7.8
Sea World. 9.1 6.2 -2.9
Disney's market share is definitely dropping along with Sea World while Universal is up. However, in terms of total attendance both Uni and WDW are up so it's not like less people are going to WDW in favor of Uni. Part of the reason is that Universal (Harry Potter) is attracting a lot of people that may not have visited Orlando at all. Since 2009 Orlando has seen a huge growth in tourism and not much has changed at WDW. Potter is a big driver of that growth. So while Disney is losing market share that doesn't necessarily mean that loss is all guests who are skipping WDW to go to Universal some of Universal's gains come from new customers.
Another factor to consider when looking at market share is number of gates. WDW has 4 gates so if I visit 7 parks on 1 trip I count as 7 unique visitors. In reality I'm not paying for 7 full price 1 day tickets. I'm paying much less with multi-day passes. Same goes for APs. If Universal has a large local fan base with relativel cheap season passes they count as "visits" every time they walk through the gate but they aren't paying full price. The hope is that those guests will spend money on food, merchandise and hotel rooms too. That's where huge profits can be made. A better metric would be market share of unique visitors but that will never be released publicly. In Disney's case they are content with a slightly smaller market share as long as it comes with a higher per guest spending number. In total they make more money. The million dollar question is when will people hit their breaking point on price? It can't go on forever.
My point is that growing market share is nice, but if you are doing it with discount tickets it may not necessarily be economically as big of a deal. When Universal opens a 3rd gate or Disney opens a 5th they will probably both see boosts in market share because of it.
Wow, this is wonderful post. And, super informative, too!
And, I don't know what to make of Sea World anymore.