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I've felt that Disneyland/world and other theme parks (e.g., Europa-park) were overpriced to begin with, but if they believe that other people are willing to pu

by zhdc1 8y ago

I've felt that Disneyland/world and other theme parks (e.g., Europa-park) were overpriced to begin with, but if they believe that other people are willing to put up with airline style pricing and other forms of price setting - well, power to them, I guess.

tonyedgecombe 8y ago
When we saw two hour queues for popular rides I always wondered why they didn’t increase their prices.
- Klathmon 8y ago
  Why would they, if people are willing to wait in them? If a 1% price increase causes any more than 1% fewer people in the park, then it's a net loss. Not to mention that many people go and don't really ride the "big rides" that much or ever.
  - swsieber 8y ago
    Does it really? I would have thought it just means less people waiting in lines. And people waiting in lines aren't spending money.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - CompelTechnic 8y ago
      People waiting in lines did spend for admission, though. Consider it this way: If all rides and all facilities have lines waiting for entrance, they are all at maximum productive capacity. The only way to expand revenue is to get more people in the door, or build more revenue-generating attractions (only the attractions that charge per use matter here). Not 100% accurate, b/c I'm sure that not each and every little hot dog stand or tchotchke booth has a queue, but a good model.
  - arkades 8y ago
    >Inner projections at Disney present that even after elevating costs at roughly double the speed of inflation over the previous 5 years, it may cost way more than it presently does with out driving away too many shoppers, an individual aware of the corporate’s parks operations mentioned.
  - mrfusion 8y ago
    I think a lot of people don’t go because of the lines and crowds.
    - Klathmon 8y ago
      I'm sure they don't, but from a business point of view, those people really don't matter. Like I said, if they were to reduce the number of people in the park by say 50%, that means that everyone would have to pay double in admission to maintain the same income. A 3-day park ticket is already almost $400. Do you really think enough people would be willing to pay $800 for a 3-day ticket to offset the number that wouldn't be willing to pay that? And would that extra cost of admission reduce the amount those people spend on souvenirs, food, events/shows, etc...? And would a 50% reduction in guests really make it "feel" any less crowded? (the distribution of people in the park is far from "normal") I'm going to side with Disney on this one. I assume the big mouse has done extensive studying in this area, and they are probably pretty close to matching what the market will handle. Not to mention that they are trying other methods to reduce crowds and wait times. They now allow you to schedule your rides during 1-hour time slots to avoid waiting for up to 3 rides a day (our last trip we didn't wait more than 15 minutes for any ride because my wife was able to schedule them for the whole trip). And there are options for some customers to get a cast member to go with them all day and basically skip all lines for a few $1000 if you want.
    - mcintyre1994 8y ago
      Don't they have a fast track product to skip the lines? It's probably optimal to price to pack the park and let the people who hate lines pay extra, instead of trying to keep lines down by increasing the price for everyone. IIRC they use varying fast track pricing on different rides for crowd management too.

by zhdc1 8y ago

tonyedgecombe 8y ago

When we saw two hour queues for popular rides I always wondered why they didn’t increase their prices.

Klathmon 8y ago
Why would they, if people are willing to wait in them? If a 1% price increase causes any more than 1% fewer people in the park, then it's a net loss. Not to mention that many people go and don't really ride the "big rides" that much or ever.
- swsieber 8y ago
  Does it really? I would have thought it just means less people waiting in lines. And people waiting in lines aren't spending money.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - CompelTechnic 8y ago
    People waiting in lines did spend for admission, though. Consider it this way: If all rides and all facilities have lines waiting for entrance, they are all at maximum productive capacity. The only way to expand revenue is to get more people in the door, or build more revenue-generating attractions (only the attractions that charge per use matter here). Not 100% accurate, b/c I'm sure that not each and every little hot dog stand or tchotchke booth has a queue, but a good model.
- arkades 8y ago
  >Inner projections at Disney present that even after elevating costs at roughly double the speed of inflation over the previous 5 years, it may cost way more than it presently does with out driving away too many shoppers, an individual aware of the corporate’s parks operations mentioned.
- mrfusion 8y ago
  I think a lot of people don’t go because of the lines and crowds.
  - Klathmon 8y ago
    I'm sure they don't, but from a business point of view, those people really don't matter. Like I said, if they were to reduce the number of people in the park by say 50%, that means that everyone would have to pay double in admission to maintain the same income. A 3-day park ticket is already almost $400. Do you really think enough people would be willing to pay $800 for a 3-day ticket to offset the number that wouldn't be willing to pay that? And would that extra cost of admission reduce the amount those people spend on souvenirs, food, events/shows, etc...? And would a 50% reduction in guests really make it "feel" any less crowded? (the distribution of people in the park is far from "normal") I'm going to side with Disney on this one. I assume the big mouse has done extensive studying in this area, and they are probably pretty close to matching what the market will handle. Not to mention that they are trying other methods to reduce crowds and wait times. They now allow you to schedule your rides during 1-hour time slots to avoid waiting for up to 3 rides a day (our last trip we didn't wait more than 15 minutes for any ride because my wife was able to schedule them for the whole trip). And there are options for some customers to get a cast member to go with them all day and basically skip all lines for a few $1000 if you want.
  - mcintyre1994 8y ago
    Don't they have a fast track product to skip the lines? It's probably optimal to price to pack the park and let the people who hate lines pay extra, instead of trying to keep lines down by increasing the price for everyone. IIRC they use varying fast track pricing on different rides for crowd management too.