News Park attendance showing significant softness heading into the Fall 2018

[JohnD]

...yeah...basically.

There’s alot of fascinating discussion we could have on this...

But let’s stick to hard, “confirmed” insider rumors, shall we?

So we know when things are gonna close

I think we were pretty much saying the same thing. I just left out that people may not be going earlier in 2019 for the same reason.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

I think we were pretty much saying the same thing. I just left out that people may not be going earlier in 2019 for the same reason.

There’s not really a thread on this...but I’ll ask the question: why haven’t we heard more marketing and promotions for 2019?

I believe there’s a lot going on behind that simple question

 

[DisneyFan92]

Hollywood studios was packed today. Didn't seem like a softness...

 

[eddie104]

Don’t forget that the company also just approved a $15 an hour raise for all cast members. So throw that in on top of the slower attendance and you get Rafiki closing, live actors being cut all over and cast hours being cut. People love to fight for huge wage increases for minimum wage and someone other than the company is gonna pay for it. You end up with people going from 40 hours to 32 hours or self checkouts like your local Walmart.

TBH that is just companies being greedy including Disney in some aspects.

 

[jlp879]

I’d like to see it again...

Grading WDW throughout the decades
https://forums.wdwmagic.com/threads...ughout-the-decades.926288/page-3#post-8144625
post #54

Or

Out of Control WDW Ticket Prices
https://forums.wdwmagic.com/threads/out-of-control-wdw-ticket-prices.879694/#post-5912897

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Don’t forget that the company also just approved a $15 an hour raise for all cast members. So throw that in on top of the slower attendance and you get Rafiki closing, live actors being cut all over and cast hours being cut. People love to fight for huge wage increases for minimum wage and someone other than the company is gonna pay for it. You end up with people going from 40 hours to 32 hours or self checkouts like your local Walmart.

Huge wage increases that won’t kick in for several years...where prices would have already offset that...

But go get em, Tiger

 

[MickeyMinnieMom]

SWGE won’t bring in that much more profit than any other year.

Feel free. Not my words.

Not that you have to; now it’s been quoted it’ll remain even if I delete it. Which I wouldn’t.

I didn’t comb through a ton of financials and analyze the heck out of this and don’t plan to (!!) — just looked up a few figures out of curiosity and am probably missing significant info as a result. That disclaimer out of the way...

When AK attendance increased 15% 2016-2017 with Pandora (est. 10,844,000 to 12,500,003) — not even a full year open, is that right? 5ish months of that FY? — that didn’t play a part in Parks’ 8% increase in Net Income over the same period? Or was that all DL or international (I didn’t dive in, like I said — figured someone here might know)?

Unless someone has some actual insider financial info, we won’t know the exact impact, of course.

And I’m only guessing, but I’d expect SWGE’s impact to be greater than whatever Pandora’s actually was. I guess we’ll see!


ETA from Disney, FY17: “The increase at our domestic operations was due to higher guest spending for admissions to our theme parks and sailings on our cruise ships and higher attendance, partially offset by cost inflation and higher expenses for operations support and new guest offerings. Growth at our domestic operations was adversely impacted by Hurricane Irma and Hurricane Matthew in the current year.”

 

[MickeyCB]

I get what you’re saying and I think there is something to that. That said, as I mentioned, I’ve had issues getting a 2BR 7mos out. Where the only thing left for our whole stay at a resort desirable to us (MK or Epcot area DVC) was a Poly bungalow! So in recent years, there seems to me to be more at work than what he was referencing - some honest to goodness demand across room types, not just everyone scrambling for a few smaller units.

I’ll be happy to see Riviera come online... at least early on before it’s sold out. Hoping for a decent 7 mo. option. With all that building, they have to be forecasting demand, obviously. Guess we’ll see...

I agree with you completely. It's so frustrating a full 7 months out to not have even a reasonable selection of 1 an 2 bedrooms.
I do only have myself to blame by buying at the Poly, because there were rumors that they would either convert some rooms to 1 an 2 bedrooms, or even a rumor of a new building. Think I learned my lesson there.

 

[ParentsOf4]

@ParentsOf4 had a great graph that showed the pricing increases relative to inflation, which was awesome!! Marie

This is updated to reflect Department of Commerce data for 2017 income, released earlier this month:

 

[teddisney]

This is updated to reflect Department of Commerce data for 2017 income, released earlier this month:

View attachment 315575

Any chance you have annual pass data to add? Or are AP's already reflected with the Tickets section?

 

[Ponderer]

Don’t forget that the company also just approved a $15 an hour raise for all cast members. So throw that in on top of the slower attendance and you get Rafiki closing, live actors being cut all over and cast hours being cut. People love to fight for huge wage increases for minimum wage and someone other than the company is gonna pay for it. You end up with people going from 40 hours to 32 hours or self checkouts like your local Walmart.

Or, you know, having to drop an extra 20 billion for Fox might have a little something to do with it. The pay increase would be a rounding error compared to that.

 

[ParentsOf4]

Any chance you have annual pass data to add? Or are AP's already reflected with the Tickets section?

The "Walt Disney World Ticket" category is a summary of the percent change for all types of tickets, including annual passes.

I have data for annual passes but did not graph it separately. Its long-term trend is similar to the overall "Walt Disney World Ticket" trend, although this can vary considerably year-to-year. In some years, AP holders see big increases. In other years, increases are modest. Disney rarely raises all ticket prices by the same percentage. However, long term-trends for multi-day tickets are similar.

 

[MickeyMinnieMom]

This is updated to reflect Department of Commerce data for 2017 income, released earlier this month:

View attachment 315575

Any comparison with competitors or leisure sector as a whole? Might not have gone up as much, but my general impression is that they’ve all outstripped wage growth. Context is always helpful when interpreting such data.

 

[marni1971]

I didn’t comb through a ton of financials and analyze the heck out of this and don’t plan to (!!) — just looked up a few figures out of curiosity and am probably missing significant info as a result. That disclaimer out of the way...

When AK attendance increased 15% 2016-2017 with Pandora (est. 10,844,000 to 12,500,003) — not even a full year open, is that right? 5ish months of that FY? — that didn’t play a part in Parks’ 8% increase in Net Income over the same period? Or was that all DL or international (I didn’t dive in, like I said — figured someone here might know)?

Unless someone has some actual insider financial info, we won’t know the exact impact, of course.

And I’m only guessing, but I’d expect SWGE’s impact to be greater than whatever Pandora’s actually was. I guess we’ll see!


ETA from Disney, FY17: “The increase at our domestic operations was due to higher guest spending for admissions to our theme parks and sailings on our cruise ships and higher attendance, partially offset by cost inflation and higher expenses for operations support and new guest offerings. Growth at our domestic operations was adversely impacted by Hurricane Irma and Hurricane Matthew in the current year.”

You misunderstand I think. SWL will be immensely popular. Too much so. The park will frequently reach capacity and all those wanting to come and spend money won’t physically get in.

 

[MickeyMinnieMom]

You misunderstand I think. SWL will be immensely popular. Too much so. The park will frequently reach capacity and all those wanting to come and spend money won’t physically get in.

Uh... of course!! Anyone disputing that? Not I!

But what you just said here is not at all the same statement as:

SWGE won’t bring in that much more profit than any other year.

That’s what I was responding to. How did I “misunderstand” that? Sounds like some backtracking...

 

[marni1971]

Uh... of course!! Anyone disputing that? Not I!

But what you just said here is not at all the same statement as:


That’s what I was responding to. How did I “misunderstand” that? Sounds like some backtracking...

No it doesn’t. It says SWL can not be a golden goose since it, and the park it’s in, is too small.

 

[MickeyMinnieMom]

No it doesn’t. It says SWL can not be a golden goose since it, and the park it’s in, is too small.

That’s quite the interpretative gymnastics of a very simple (I think wrong) prediction on your part:

SWGE won’t bring in that much more profit than any other year.

 

[RustySpork]

That’s quite the interpretative gymnastics of a very simple (I think wrong) prediction on your part:

Seems pretty straight forward to me. Capacity at HS is pretty small which means their ability to earn and profit from the park has a low ceiling. Any earnings from even a few thousand extra guests per day resort wide will probably be statistically insignificant.

 

[Nubs70]

That’s quite the interpretative gymnastics of a very simple (I think wrong) prediction on your part:

How so?

It's like the Harry Potter store at Kings Cross. It is so popular there is a line to get into the store to spend money. This means potential profit simply walks past the store. If store was larger and without a line, more profit could be had.

 

[MickeyMinnieMom]

Seems pretty straight forward to me. Capacity at HS is pretty small which means their ability to earn and profit from the park has a low ceiling. Any earnings from even a few thousand extra guests per day resort wide will probably be statistically insignificant.

Statistically insignificant? Disagree. That’s FAR too strong.

Limited in ways it wouldn’t be if the land and park were larger? Yes.