Strange resort pricing....

[Jedi Osborn]

A friend of mine and I have this funny habit of analyzing anything Disney just for something to ponder. He recently noticed something strange and I’m wondering if any of you might know the answer.
It seems that most of the hotels drop their prices around the last week of August. We figure that’s when just about everyone is back in school. The park hours start getting shorter around this time and the summer season is pretty much over.
The odd thing we noticed is that most (maybe all) of the home-away-from-home prices drop around the beginning of July. Usually between the two of us we can come up with a possible reason (and least enough to satisfy ourselves), but we’re really stumped on this one.
Any ideas?

 

[jaimjaim25]

That could be because alot of families go before the kids go back to school in August and they want families to take advantage of the nicer parts of the hotels before the summer is over. Possibly..??

 

[DisneyPhD]

hmmm I wonder. I know that DVC has this deal that whenever points go up for one time period, they have to go down for another. It is possible with rasing points for holiday or peak season they needed to lower another and summer seemed as good as any. The rates for the home away from home are based on DVC rates.

Only a guess. I should get out my book and look at the rates for summer for DVC, but I am not sure where it is right now. We never looked into since our annual WDW trip is always in the winter to escape the cold here in Michigan.

 

[Jedi Osborn]

Upon further investigation, we also found that the deluxe resorts do the same thing. So it seems that the most expensive places drop their prices earlier in the season that the moderarte or value resorts.
Hmmmm.....

 

[disneydudette]

my guess is this...

They want people to stay at the deluxe resorts...
they say once you go deluxe...you never go back...:lol: :lol:

This allows for families to look at a deluxe resort...instead of being forced to stay at a moderate due to pricing....

Thats just my guess....

OH..and one more guess....

Disney is quite compeditive (sp?)...it's possible that around that time...local resorts and resorts on US and SW lower there prices...as well....
they most figure thats when the crowds will most likely come...

 

[Pumbas Nakasak]

I may be off the mark but those dates coincide with peaks in the UK holiday market.

 

[Jedi Osborn]

Thanks for all the ideas.
I especially like the one from disneydudette. That could really be a possibility.
One other idea my friend had was that they may just be playing to the numbers. With out offending anyone here, the majority of the people that can afford that type of room probably doesn't want to visit in the crowded heat of the summer. They'd visit off season and will pay a little more. And the families that can only visit in the summer because they have one or more kid are usually on a budget and can't afford that much. This goes along with disneydudette's idea of lowering the price to get the budget minded families into a more expensive room, hoping they'll pay more next time.
I'm only generalizing here, I'm sure that there are plenty of families with kids that can afford the expensive rooms and plenty of people that don't have kids that like to visit in the summer. So please don't take offense.
Its all just good Disney thought provoking fun.