News Park attendance showing significant softness heading into the Fall 2018

jt04

Well-Known Member

Here is a silver lining. Was just waiting for proof with this report.

Management has a huge effort in front of it over the next year but also for the 50th. I suspected all the personnel shake ups are related to this.

It is a very tight labor market (Orange man good) and TDO faces that challenge in addition to massive retraining efforts. No small effort will be required.

I suspect being a team player in all this will be noticed and rewarded.

IMO.
 

BigThunderMatt

Well-Known Member
So what you are saying is... unless you can invest... you should just ignore Disney. In Florida and want to add Disney to your trip? DON'T

I mean if you want to, sure. But don't have the cojones to whine about how terrible it was after the fact when you get there and can't get a single decent fastpass, can't just waltz in to any old restaurant, and show up 2 minutes before parade time expecting a primo curbside spot.
 

SourcererMark79

Well-Known Member
In the Parks
No
I have vivid memories of buying a killer skull Halloween mask like the one in Halloween III from there when I was a kid. I had that mask for years. It was probably my favorite shop.

Fun fact: Steve Martin worked in the Magic Shop in Disneyland when he was young.
When I first visited in 86 as a youngster, I was amazed by all the tricks you would see, and the stuff in there was cool AF! The masks on the wall and ceiling, so cool (and scary!)
 

Casper Gutman

Well-Known Member
Christine McCarthy just confirmed that both guest spending and attendance at Domestic Parks for fiscal Q4 (July - September) were up compared to last year. Perhaps this entire thread was fake news?
Just a reminder that Hollywood Math is Hollywood Math and that over the last few months WDW has been cutting costs and raising prices like it is going bankrupt.

Probably best to pay attention to how a company actually behaves rather than what it says on a PR-focused earnings call.
 

MisterPenguin

President of Animal Kingdom
Premium Member
Just a reminder that Hollywood Math is Hollywood Math and that over the last few months WDW has been cutting costs and raising prices like it is going bankrupt.

Probably best to pay attention to how a company actually behaves rather than what it says on a PR-focused earnings call.

Well, you'll be happy to know just how honest Disney is, in that, in their latest quarterly call, they keep attributing greater profit to increased prices.
 
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MickeyMinnieMom

Well-Known Member
I know @MisterPenguin linked to the quarterly report thread, but I think this part is directly on point for this thread; OP was 9/10/18, Q4 ended 9/29/18:

Domestic P&R:
  • Attendance at domestic parks up 4% (remember that when TEA's numbers come out in April)
  • per capita spending up 9%
  • per room spending up 8%
  • occupancy: 85%, up 1% from last year
  • reservations up 3% this quarter
  • booked rates up 4% this quarter
Certainly possible that Jul-Aug were crazy strong and Sep was incredibly slow (and continued that way into Oct), but we don’t have evidence for that at this point, that I can tell.

Seems to me that cuts were likely what some suggested — not that different from any year-end “optimizing” that we’ve seen before. Once again, not appparently a sign of doom... I know... YET!! ;)

Word from inside the park is that there are signs of some significant slowdown in attendance this month.

Alarm bells are beginning to sound, with various areas being asked to trim back labor and begin cost saving measures.

For those of you who may not be regular readers, this isn't entirely new, and has occurred several times over the last couple of years.
 
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monothingie

Evil will always triumph, because good is dumb.
Premium Member
I know @MisterPenguin linked to the quarterly report thread, but I think this part is directly on point for this thread; OP was 9/10/18, Q4 ended 9/29/18:

Domestic P&R:
  • Attendance at domestic parks up 4% (remember that when TEA's numbers come out in April)
  • per capita spending up 9%
  • per room spending up 8%
  • occupancy: 85%, up 1% from last year
  • reservations up 3% this quarter
  • booked rates up 4% this quarter
Certainly possible that Jul-Aug were crazy strong and Sep was incredibly slow (and continued that way into Oct), but we don’t have evidence for that at this point, that I can tell.

Seems to me that cuts were likely what some suggested — not that different from any year-end “optimizing” that we’ve seen before. Once again, not appparently a sign of doom... I know... YET!! ;)

These stats are not specific to WDW, they also include the DLR as well. Further DHS debuted TSL during the quarter and could have accounted for this attendance increases. Unfortunately because specific gate figures are not extrapolated in the report you don’t know where the increase was so your just left to assume. It is possible that DHS contributed to this bump while other gates took a hit or remained flat. Also 4% is not something to celebrate. (Especially in a good economic environment with record people traveling)

Spending increases are due to their price increase strategy.

The occupant and reservation numbers are for the most part flat. Again good economic environment and record travel, the result here may be considered disappointing. Also remember the heavy promotions offered for the first half of the fall.

The takeaway from this is probably P&R didn’t do well or didn’t do poorly. It was meh. I guess the panic came from the fact that management was expecting to do significantly better.
 

MickeyMinnieMom

Well-Known Member
These stats are not specific to WDW, they also include the DLR as well. Further DHS debuted TSL during the quarter and could have accounted for this attendance increases. Unfortunately because specific gate figures are not extrapolated in the report you don’t know where the increase was so your just left to assume. It is possible that DHS contributed to this bump while other gates took a hit or remained flat. Also 4% is not something to celebrate. (Especially in a good economic environment with record people traveling)

Spending increases are due to their price increase strategy.

The occupant and reservation numbers are for the most part flat. Again good economic environment and record travel, the result here may be considered disappointing. Also remember the heavy promotions offered for the first half of the fall.

The takeaway from this is probably P&R didn’t do well or didn’t do poorly. It was meh. I guess the panic came from the fact that management was expecting to do significantly better.
I take your point about WDW and DL of course. But this -- really? And this is only partially true since attendance is also up -- a portion of increased profit would be due to increased per guest spend, but not all of it.

Regardless, it'd be cool if people actually remembered this panic apparently being unfounded (yet again), but past experience tells me many won't. :)
 

LSLS

Well-Known Member
So does that 4% exclude closing the parks completely for 2 days and the chaos of the entire state of Florida getting evacuated? 2.2% increase would just be the 2 fully closed days if those aren't excluded. If you say the other 5 days of that week saw a significant decrease due to cancelled plans/people trying to get back from evacuations (and assume there was ONLY one week of impact), you would be over a 4% increase right there. Also note this does not account for CA. Would help to know that breakdown.
 
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seascape

Well-Known Member
So does that 4% exclude closing the parks completely for 2 days and the chaos of the entire state of Florida getting evacuated? 2.2% increase would just be the 2 fully closed days if those aren't excluded. If you say the other 5 days of that week saw a significant decrease due to cancelled plans/people trying to get back from evacuations (and assume there was ONLY one week of impact), you would be over a 4% increase right there. Also note this does not account for CA. Would help to know that breakdown.
Regardless of the storm last year Universal reported flat attendance but Disney reported 4% increase. What does that say? In 2017 Disney grew faster than Universal and gained market share in Orlando. 2018 looks the same with Disney gaining more than Universal. Wait until 2020 and 2021. Disney will be up dramatically. Universal should should not see gains in market share until 2022 or 2023 when their next gate opens.
 

LSLS

Well-Known Member
Regardless of the storm last year Universal reported flat attendance but Disney reported 4% increase. What does that say? In 2017 Disney grew faster than Universal and gained market share in Orlando. 2018 looks the same with Disney gaining more than Universal. Wait until 2020 and 2021. Disney will be up dramatically. Universal should should not see gains in market share until 2022 or 2023 when their next gate opens.

Well not entirely. It probably would mean that, but you would need a breakdown of Orlando vs CA to really make that jump.

Can you also link the universal report? I haven't seen that one
 

baymenxpac

Well-Known Member
Regardless of the storm last year Universal reported flat attendance but Disney reported 4% increase. What does that say? In 2017 Disney grew faster than Universal and gained market share in Orlando. 2018 looks the same with Disney gaining more than Universal. Wait until 2020 and 2021. Disney will be up dramatically. Universal should should not see gains in market share until 2022 or 2023 when their next gate opens.

i mean, why even throw the false dichotomy with universal in there? why do i care if the disney overlords are doing slightly better than the comcast overlords? neither of them make me any money (sorry, to be fair, disney does make me about 90 cents a year from my one share of disney stock i own).

the only reason that i'd care if disney is gaining more marketshare in orlando is if it convinced the company to increase its offerings, something it has been resistant to doing, instead opting to replace or re-skin attractions. that basically hasn't been the case in two decades, so the idea that rich people are just making more money, and stand to make even more money in the future, doesn't really get me all hot and bothered.
 

Disstevefan1

Well-Known Member
Disney Parks Attendance, Revenue Up for Fourth Quarter, 2018

For the fiscal year, the parks saw a revenue increase 10 percent to $20.3 billion.
Disney reported Thursday that attendance is up in 4 percent at the domestic theme parks, and per-capita spending was up 9 percent.
Guest spending growth was due to increases in ticket prices, food, beverage and merchandise spending, and average daily room rates.

http://www.mynews13.com/fl/orlando/...tendance--revenue-up-for-fourth-quarter--2018
 
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