Maybe it's just me but I strongly disagree with running a company this way. The problem with bleeding your customer dry is that when they run dry, they don't have anything left to give... and when they realize what you're doing, they may not come back.
Yes, WDW can increase ticket/parking prices $_______ and get away with it. Yes, WDW can charge exorbitant amounts for resorts while slashing service and get away with it. Yes, WDW can cut show quality, maintenance, slash attraction budgets etc. and get away with it. You get the idea... if you want to max out your price point, you can.
The thing is though, budgeting customers aren't going to exceed their budgets. When the price points on ticketing and resorts are stressing those budgets, people cut. They cut dining. They stay off-site. They skip the shops. They chop a day off their vacation. You're not going to get an extra dollar from people stretching their dollar already.
Customers who aren't concerned about budgets won't have those issues, but they'll instead see the declining quality and value for their dollar and stay away. They'll take a vacation to Europe instead of Orlando. They'll stay at a 5 star resort and eat at a 5 star restaurant instead of paying for one in name only.
Increasing quality and having fair prices runs counter to the methodology above.
Yet, when budget conscious customers are getting a great deal on tickets and resorts, they can afford to eat on property or buy more merchandise. When the quality is increased, the quality consicious customer finds more offerings worth spending their money on. Both find ways to spend their budgets anyway. Even more importantly, when customers feel like they've gotten great value for their money, they become repeat customers.
What I hate about the MM+ investment is that it shows management believes the best way to operate is to milk the current customer base through targeted marketing and tracking rather than grow through re-investment in the parks.
WDW 4 park attendance from 2008-2012 has grown from 47.1M to 48.5M (roughly 3%). In that same timeframe, the US population has grown approximately 3.2%. Attendance is stagnant. They're not growing. Meanwhile, Universal spends a fraction of MM+'s budget on Potter and attendance at IoA jumps from 5.95M in 2010 to 7.98M in 2012 (34% increase).
Invest in your customers and they'll invest in you. Nickel and dime your customers and they'll nickel and dime you right back.
TDO doesn't seem to understand based on their business strategy, but it is indeed possible to kill the golden goose.
To be clear, I don't agree at all with running a corporation the way most are run.
Most guests that stay in WDW at their resorts do so for proximity, that is the ammenity that is worth so much money for most guests. It is the oldest rule in real estate... Location, location, location. Same reason an empty lot in a bad neighborhood sells for $1500 while the same size lot in a high-end neighborhood sells for $25,000. Same dirt, different location.
Budget concious customers will always search out a good deal, we do but are not in as much of a limited resource situation as many guests but that makes me lucky to a point. I don't believe TDO wants to grow their base too much, right now MK in particular is bursting at the seams and cannot seem to handle too many more guests and maintain any level of experience.
Never forget too, value is a perception. I purchase iPhones/iPads/Mac because the hardware is generally highly quality, lasts for many years with little to no repair and the resale value after a few years is very high compared to the general competition.
Do you really want to see a 34% jump in attendance at MK? I certainly
do not want to see anything of the sort, it is already too crowded right now and would require multiple new attractions to handle many more guests, more trams, buses, boats, larger parking lots, wider roads, more toll booths, etc. to handle the additional guests. In my 20,000 foot view those are the infrastructure things they are working on right now so they can grow in the long term. It is a sad reality but those infrastucture projects have to come first or the initial customer experience is a nightmare and they will not come back even if the attractions far exceed their expectations. Personally, I view what they are working on as very important to my experience.
In the last few years TDO has increased the size of the bus fleet and the bus stops at MK, increased the ferryboat capacity by double, they are automating the monorail system to increase capacity, adding more concrete (not my favorite project) to MK hub and reworking the flow through it, creating a semi-permanant bypass for exiting the MK, added larger restrooms in Fantasyland/Liberty Square, and Expanded Fantasyland/Circusland to name a few. Most of these projects signal a shift to infrastructure improvements designed to expand the capacity of the park as a whole.
TDO is faced with the fact that nearly everyone that comes to WDW visits the MK as their priority, the rest of the parks are a bonus so the park capacity must be expanded before any major new attractions should be added to improve the experience we all hold so dear.
