IMFearless
Well-Known Member
Yes it's a shame, but I guess they have the two water parks which both are very well attended, so combined they are massively in the lead.
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TEA Attendance Report Now due June 3rd
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Matt_Black
Well-Known Member
Yeah, when you consider that for about 2-3 months of the year the people who would go to Typhoon Lagoon probably go to Blizzard Beach instead because of the seasonal closure.
Next Big Thing
Well-Known Member
Frankly, looking at that Chimelong Waterpark, Disney may have it beat in theming, but in terms of slides, that park blows Disney out of the water. Honestly, Disney is WAY behind in developing their water parks and making the experience more of a leisurely one. Something like an endless lazy river similar to this would be amazing:
Mouse_Trap
Well-Known Member
Sad to see Typhoon Lagoon is no longer the top of the water parks list.
That's what happens when you have a 25 year old park, that only had one addition in it's lifetime....that being over 10 years ago.
Hopefully this combined with the opening of Volcano Bay as USF will make Disney dramatically buck their ideas up or TL is going to be slipping further down.
Mouse_Trap
Well-Known Member
and vice versa of course.....so I'm sure it balances things out.
Being the winter, they would be extremely slow days anyway if you were to split the attendance in half.
IMFearless
Well-Known Member
Build a water coaster that links the two parks. Job done!
Mouse_Trap
Well-Known Member
I love the long term numbers. Interesting to note that since the 1998 time, since opening IoA, Universal has added about 9m guests - doubling their attendance or 100% growth.
Disney has added 10m guests, so roughly the same growth as Universal and giving them 25% growth.
The Potter factor has obviously had a massive effect in recent years, the combined numbers are up almost 50% (5m) since it first opened. Without it, I would have though we would have seen slow growth (maybe 1m) at best.
What is most pleasing, it that Universal in ploughing back their additional revenue into developing their parks and resorts.
Will the Mouse rise to the challenge? So far we have seen nothing to suggest so.
CaptainAmerica
Premium Member
What challenge? They're miles ahead. Universal's relatively larger percentage growth is simply a function of a smaller base. If I have a theme park with 100 guests and next year I add 60 guests, I'm not going to intimidate Disney with my 60% growth statistic.
You have cause and effect backwards. Universal isn't building rides because they're reinvesting, Universal is building because flash-in-the-pan IP is their only strategy. It's inorganic and unsustainable. See: zero growth at IOA.
ETA: DCA is in the same boat.
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Next Big Thing
Well-Known Member
I don't normally agree with you, but most of the market share universal took came from SeaWorld and Disney is at record crowds.
I'll agree that there's a challenge when Universal starts taking chunks of market share from the mouse, not an irrelevant aquatic amusement park that's been under fire by PETA for god knows how long. And they're only making it worse by firing back.
CaptainAmerica
Premium Member
Even if they take market share as a greater percentage, Disney won't care. Universal can have a bigger slice of the pie if the pie itself is growing such that Disney continues to climb. Blue ocean. Disney has their growth targets and they don't care how they hit them.
Jon81uk
Well-Known Member
and the growth for Universal is good for Disney too. The only reason Disney would have added that 25% is the growth in Florida in general from Harry Potter.
Harry Potter attracted a lot of new visitors, or brought back those who hadn't been to Florida for years, particularly the guests coming from the UK. UK guests are more likely to stay for 2 weeks and visit all the Florida parks so Universals additions pay off for everyone.
Only reason SeaWorld are adding a coaster is to keep getting people back, for example, we have booked for 2016 and would have skipped SeaWorld in favour of more Uni or WDW time if it weren't for the announcement of Mako.
Animaniac93-98
Well-Known Member
Disney Studios Paris and Disneyland Parc both drop 4.7%, even with Ratatouille opening in July.
I guess attendance in the first 6 months of 2014 was really low.
I guess attendance in the first 6 months of 2014 was really low.
BaconPancakes
Well-Known Member
Yes because King Kong, Harry Potter, Nintendo, etc are such brand new, "flash in the pan" franchises.
They should take a note from Disney and use beloved franchises such as AVATAR next time...
CaptainAmerica
Premium Member
Maybe I wasn't clear. The franchises themselves are time tested, but their theme park impact is absolutely flash-in-the-pan. This isn't even debatable. Islands of Adventure was the only Orlando park that couldn't muster any growth whatsoever, even while Universal Studios grew by leaps and bounds. That tells a very real story about the long-term strategic value of these new attractions once the new car smell wears off.Yes because King Kong, Harry Potter, Nintendo, etc are such brand new, "flash in the pan" franchises.
In fact, the tremendous growth at Universal Studios probably masks an even worse story at IOA. IOA almost certainly saw a bump from guests visiting the resort for Diagon Alley and the Hogwarts Express. That means the Potter-adjusted growth at IOA was likely actually negative.
Edited to correct typos.
Mouse_Trap
Well-Known Member
The challenge of truly upping their game; adding new immersive, jaw dropping, top quality attractions. Yes WDW is far bigger - they have 4.5 times the attendance of UOR. They have added 4 major E tickets (with another on the way) since Disney last added 1.
A larger percentage growth isn't just a function of a smaller base; yes the larger you are the liklihood is that you will see smaller % changes - but you can't argue with the staggering growth for Universal in both the past 5 and 15 year periods. No, adding 60 guests isn't going to intimidate Disney....adding 9 million though may start to concern them, especially if you believe the stories of how much revenue these guests are dropping at Universal and Potter especially (personally, I couldn't care less about magic wands and the like)
It seems strange to criticise Universal's strategy of using IPs when Disney are using exactly the same method.....Frozen, Star Wars, Avatar, Toy Story, Cars etc. Especially when both the Studios was always about the movies (and hence existing IP) and IoA was all about trying a number of different IPs together in a park. Here, Universal has not deviated, it is Disney who have done a complete 180.
Why is this growth inorganic and unsustainable? That makes very little sense.
I'm not trying to make a Universal vs. Disney argument, I'm simply commentating that UOR has had phenomenal growth in this period. Disney, over the same period has seen steady growth...both have added almost the same number of annual visitors.
I am somewhat surprised by the zero change at IoA, I would however suggest that they have already had their staggering growth and have maintained it, which is no mean feat. Name a business that wouldn't be happy in just sustaining their numbers after growing 50% in 5 years. They haven't added anything significant since, expect this to change once we have Kong opening next year followed by a Marvel expansion and re-do plus whatever happens with Jurassic Park/World.
Mouse_Trap
Well-Known Member
I don't think there's anything "flash-in-the-pan" about IoA adding nearly 3m guests and keeping them.
Flash in the pan would have been if they had gained the visitors and now lost them - droping back to their previous attendance levels.
CaptainAmerica
Premium Member
Disney's growth shows that the Potter revenue isn't cannibalizing Disney's. It's not like guests are taking a dollar they would have spent at WDW and spending it at USO. They're taking dollars they wouldn't have spent at all and adding them to the overall "pie" that is the central Florida tourism industry.
I have no problem with IP attractions per se, but you need to be able to generate 3% growth without building a new attraction every year.
Because they can't afford to grow in perpetuity if their only path to growth is to be constantly building. See above: you need to be able to spin off 2-4% even in a year with nothing new.
Investors don't like volatile growth followed by stagnation. They want continuous, managed growth. Plus, there's no IP out there that will do for them what Potter has done. Once Potter has run its course, when then shall they turn? People are kidding themselves if they think Nintendo is on that scale.
hpyhnt 1000
Well-Known Member
The IoA numbers really are a surprise, and quite disappointing. The park certainly has its flaws, but on the whole it's well done with some great coasters, 2 of the world's best indoor E-tickets (soon to be 3 from the way Kong is shaping up), and some amazing theming. I really do like that park and it's a shame to see it just sort of muddling along.
Regarding the IPs that make up Uni's attractions, it's a bit of both outdated films and lousy attractions. Some IPs are truly way past their time (Twister, Mummy, even Men in Black) but have decent attractions. But then there are lousy attractions based on relatively current IPs (Shrek being the glaring case here, and I'd even throw Simpsons into this) and just plain bad attractions based on bad IPs (Fear Factor).
Disney will always have an advantage when it comes to its films and characters because parents who grew up with them will be eager to pass them down to their kids, all while introducing them to the next generation of Disney characters. Harry Potter is the first IP for Universal that could prove to be as timeless as many of Disney's franchises. But with others, while Twister and Terminator and MiB were decent films, they aren't the the sort of thing that you "hand down" to your children, so they have a limited shelf life of maybe 7-10 years until society sort of moves on to the next thing and all but forgets that summer blockbuster from way back when.
donsullivan
Premium Member
The market share data in the Orlando market is actually an interesting one overall. This year, USO share of the Orlando market was 22.62%; a nice increase over last year but still not a return to their peak back in 2003 of 22.98%. Over that same time period, WDW has gone from 67.68% to 70.99% share of the Orlando market. Meanwhile, SW has gone from 9.34% to 6.39%.
If you look at the share trend over the last decade you can see the period where USO was not investing in the parks at all, their share of the market was dropping pretty significantly every year. That bottomed out in 2009 when they started to re-invest in the parks again and now they're back close to the same share of the Orlando market they had 11 years ago.
If you look at the share trend over the last decade you can see the period where USO was not investing in the parks at all, their share of the market was dropping pretty significantly every year. That bottomed out in 2009 when they started to re-invest in the parks again and now they're back close to the same share of the Orlando market they had 11 years ago.
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NowInc
Well-Known Member
Not that I am looking to get into a game of so-and-so are not reporting accurate numbers or anything...but..you guys do realize these are publicly traded companies...right? These are the #s that are reported to stock holders, and outright lying about them would open them up to severe law suits. Yes its hard to prove, but its a risk not worth taking.