News Park attendance showing significant softness heading into the Fall 2018

[Sirwalterraleigh]

The most interesting bit to me shows that in these off season periods just HOW BIG the local/weekend trip contingent is at WDW.

Agreed...

A lot of that is the locals...can you stop mobbing the food and wine festival please? Or the Halloween parties?

 

[tirian]

Theme parks need periods of soft attendance to handle maintenance and refurbs. For decades, Disney accepted that fact; they’ve only demanded nonstop crowds for about eight years now, primarily since the NextGen and Magic Band debacle that cost over $2 billion in tech infrastructure and is already outdated. Execs were promised Guests would spend more $$$ because the band would make it easier to charge items without paying attention to budgets. They were promised Disney wouldn’t need to build new attractions for 15 YEARS because the Magic Bands would simply redistribute crowds to existing rides. Obviously, none of that worked out.

September is supposed to have soft attendance. Yes, surveys have shown guests think Disney is overpriced*, but school districts have also cracked down on vacation times. There are a myriad of reasons for soft attendance, but honestly — it’s healthy.

* which blows my mind because Disney is finally investing in its parks again! However, the hotel rates are obscene.

 

[Disstevefan1]

They can do whatever they want

all leading to money

hard tickets create real profits

I am in total agreement. This is why we have long standby queues even when the attendance is going down.. I am sad now

 

[CaptainAmerica]

Since when would SW:GE be opening early? are you going Nov 1st this year or 2019?

2019

 

[tirian]

In the whole overall discussion of this being a 'soft' period, I have espoused reasons why it's soft, which implies I agree that it has been 'soft.' I have never denied that this September is soft. However, it's not the ghost town some have made it out to be.

A decade ago, September was a ghost town, and it was a good period for refurbs. The problem is, Disney also made business decisions that created new problems.

They encouraged CMs to make line-level jobs a career, and people did it despite the awful pay. Now soft periods mean budget cuts, which mean cut hours. Disney has to drive business year-round. (But we know they don’t care if everyone has adequate pay, because they still cut hours as if the parks were going out of business.)

Guests expect fireworks year-round instead of only summertime and special events. Disney has to drive business year-round.

Disney relied on Magic Bands to redistribute crowds instead of building new attractions, and they foolishly invested over $2 billion that will never be fully regained because the infrastructure will always need to be updated. The money has to come from somewhere.

Then, Disney created festivals and events (mostly running) to drive year-round attendance, and they created another problem because they couldn’t cut operating hours or schedule multiple rolling refurbs like they did from 1971–about 2009.

Star Wars opens soon enough for people to postpone vacations.

On top of all this, two years ago, Disney began cutting staff during the historically soft periods even though attendance levels were higher, leading to artificially created long queues at attractions and restaurants. This created poor guest satisfaction ratings and word of mouth; and along with overpriced hotel rates, the bad reputation is catching up to them.

Suddenly, soft attendance is a huge problem.

 

[asianway]

You left out the creepy sociopaths, too. I really feel for the character CMs. The kids are cute, but too many adults either ask uncomfortable questions that would make me question my safety or would feel between my legs to see what kind of equipment I have.

Does the fact I could sub-categorize that for you say more about me or them?

 

[flynnibus]

A decade ago

For the TL: DR crowd- "The monster must be fed...."

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

2019

Ehhhh...why would you cancel?

If it’s open...it’s open. You can choose to navigate around it or skip it.

But let’s not act like they will triple sell the on property rooms and the Hampton inn in Kissimmee will be $350 a night. There’ll be a bump...but the closer it gets...the more these boards seem to believe that tent cities outside Mecca are gonna pop up. We’re losing our perspective a little.

 

[Nubs70]

A decade ago, September was a ghost town, and it was a good period for refurbs. The problem is, Disney also made business decisions that created new problems.

They encouraged CMs to make line-level jobs a career, and people did it despite the awful pay. Now soft periods mean budget cuts, which mean cut hours. Disney has to drive business year-round. (But we know they don’t care if everyone has adequate pay, because they still cut hours as if the parks were going out of business.)

Guests expect fireworks year-round instead of only summertime and special events. Disney has to drive business year-round.

Disney relied on Magic Bands to redistribute crowds instead of building new attractions, and they foolishly invested over $2 billion that will never be fully regained because the infrastructure will always need to be updated. The money has to come from somewhere.

Then, Disney created festivals and events (mostly running) to drive year-round attendance, and they created another problem because they couldn’t cut operating hours or schedule multiple rolling refurbs like they did from 1971–about 2009.

Star Wars opens soon enough for people to postpone vacations.

On top of all this, two years ago, Disney began cutting staff during the historically soft periods even though attendance levels were higher, leading to artificially created long queues at attractions and restaurants. This created poor guest satisfaction ratings and word of mouth; and along with overpriced hotel rates, the bad reputation is catching up to them.

Suddenly, soft attendance is a huge problem.

And coming.from a sales perspective, it takes 12 positive customer experiences to overcome 1 negative experience.

To maintain a neutral experience index:
For every 1 negative experience of a return customer requires 12 new one and done customers.

Is WDW running out of one and done customers?

 

[jrlang1]

A small drop can be significant softness financially, especially when most of the cost are fixed and or contracted ahead of time based on expected number. (Food, Utilities, Staffing Contacts, murch, ect.)

Last quarter the company wide profit margin was 19.15%

https://ycharts.com/companies/DIS/profit_margin

For example an unexpected drop of 5% in attendance would result in a greater than 5% drop in profit because the park hours and staffing is already set and i would assume that Disney pre-orders the food based on expected attendance and risks spoilage if unsold. Then combine this with a 5% drop in attendance having little effect to wait times, 30 minutes would become 28.5 and 150 would become 142.5 not including the lost extra entertainment.

Now this being said i would rather not see everything "EXTRA" be cut because a the small extras are more important then a ride on a roller coaster

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

And coming.from a sales perspective, it takes 12 positive customer experiences to overcome 1 negative experience.

To maintain a neutral experience index:
For every 1 negative experience of a return customer requires 12 new one and done customers.

Is WDW running out of one and done customers?

...very interesting.

As far as your last question...I have wondered about that a lot. Much of the iger era - infact.

Even though it was never “cheap”...there was a long period where you could go without a HELOC.

Every labor study (US) seems to come to the same conclusion: the average worker hasn’t made more in a long time...any earnings gets gobble up immediately by the CPI.

So when a room at port Orleans goes up 100% (not an exaggeration...actually an understatement) in about 10 years...as does the one day ticket...

Can they cast the net as wide and is that trend of lower numbers to generate similar revenue going to continue that we’ve seen of late?

It’s a fair question. Have they lost clientele in a meaningful way?

 

[Princess Leia]

FoP numbers have gone back down again:

The mornings really do command the longer wait times now, but it’s nothing compared to how long the lines were just a couple months ago (at least, how long the app said the wait times were).

 

[drizgirl]

When they say that attendance is soft, I find myself wondering if it's actually down, or just not up as much as they hoped for.

 

[peter11435]

When they say that attendance is soft, I find myself wondering if it's actually down, or just not up as much as they hoped for.

Depends which park

 

[drizgirl]

Depends which park

And whether it really is down overall or just in 1 or 2 specific parks while up in others.

 

[crxbrett]

When I was at AK one day last week or the week before, there was actually one point I saw on the MDE that FoP was only 55 and NRJ was only 25 at like 4p in the afternoon. I never saw the wait for FoP go above 75 on the days I was there.

 

[Brad Bishop]

We have Disney annual passes and we dont go nearly as often as we used to because of the crowds, lines & inability to get Fast Passes even 30 days in advance. Maybe this is ok with Disney. Maybe they dont want passholders there every week? But, I'm not waiting in line for 2 hours for anybody or anything. And the longer the lines, the less we go.

Passholders are "filler". If everything is going great at Disney they already have the parks filled with people buying food and merch.

If you think about the once-in-a-while/lifetime guest then they're staying on-site, trying to take in the food options, buying the merch, etc. They're spending a ton of money and right behind them is someone else who wants to spend a ton of money.

When they're having a hard time filling the parks, then passholders are important. Whatever merch you're thinking about buying you're likely going to buy anyway whether it's this trip or next.

I'm not knocking Disney for this. It makes sense. It may seem a little backwards from a passholder's perspective which would likely be, "...but I'm a loyal passholder!" That's great, when they need you they'll let you know with discounts.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

Ehhhh...why would you cancel?

If it’s open...it’s open. You can choose to navigate around it or skip it.

But let’s not act like they will triple sell the on property rooms and the Hampton inn in Kissimmee will be $350 a night. There’ll be a bump...but the closer it gets...the more these boards seem to believe that tent cities outside Mecca are gonna pop up. We’re losing our perspective a little.

Hollywood Studios is different than Animal Kingdom. When I went right after Avatar's opening, I was able to avoid it and not even notice a significant uptick in crowds and congestion. I don't expect that to be the case at DHS.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Hollywood Studios is different than Animal Kingdom. When I went right after Avatar's opening, I was able to avoid it and not even notice a significant uptick in crowds and congestion. I don't expect that to be the case at DHS.

Oh sure it will be hell...they don’t have the capacity for even DAK’s crowds...

But what I meant is avoid it if it’s too much of a hassle...as in skip mgm. Then get it the next time.

We’ve been to these places dozens of times (some of us way more times)...theres little mystery. We can focus on other areas and it helps keep it balanced. Try it sometime.

 

[disneygeek90]

When I was at AK one day last week or the week before, there was actually one point I saw on the MDE that FoP was only 55 and NRJ was only 25 at like 4p in the afternoon. I never saw the wait for FoP go above 75 on the days I was there.

Currently posted at 60 for FoP and 80 NRJ 4pm Thursday. Makes me want to leave work and jump over.