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| Did anyone notice that Disney World seemed a lot less crowded this summer? |
As Labor Day today marks the end of the peak summer travel season for theme parks across the country, 2016 marks one of the most disappointing attendance seasons for Disney theme parks in years.
Attendance has notably fallen for Disney World Florida, and even Disneyland in California, for the March and June quarters, and many experts are also expecting the September quarter attendance numbers to fall short of last year's numbers as well as mosquitoes infected with the Zika virus are now threatening to knock on the door of Central Florida.
Without even counting the bad news from the Zika virus outbreak in Florida, poor currency exchange rates from tourists in Europe and Latin America, and competing with the Rio Summer Olympics in August, Motley Fool gives five reasons why Disney lost the summer of 2016:
1. Tiered pricing made single-day tickets too expensive
Disney's greedy move in announcing a shift to increased tier-based pricing late last February, changing its policy from charging the same price on any given day to pricing in three increased levels based on demand, jacked up ticket prices 18% during the summer and other peak holiday periods.
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| Animal Kingdom's River of Lights failed to open for Earth Day |
The policy perhaps is working so well that it may end up causing attendance at the theme parks to fall for all calendar-year fiscal quarters.
2. Animal Kingdom at night didn't seize the day
The new Rivers of Light lakefront show, that was supposed to anchor the new nighttime festivities, failed to materialize in time for its Earth Day debut and remains in limbo, so Disney's plans to turn its largest theme park into a nocturnal destination for guests never materialized in the summer of 2016. Many other planned nighttime safari rides in Disney's animal preserve just suffered from poor lighting.
Labor Day will thus mark the last time for some time that Animal Kingdom will close late at night at 11 p.m. For the rest of the fall, the animal theme park will close as early as 6 p.m. until the year-end holiday season when the Rivers of Light will finally be expected to debut.
3. Blackout dates became the new normal
Another greedy move by Disney to make its annual passes more expensive and adding more blackout dates during the peak seasons seem to have backfired for Disney.
Increasing the price of annual passes by double-digit percentages pushed many AP holders into lower tiers with more blackout dates which kept regular out of the theme parks this summer.
4. Disney's least visited theme park is a hard-hat zone
Most of Disney's Hollywood Studios is closed off due to major construction projects to build Star Wars Land and Toy Story Land as several ride closures severely impacted attendance numbers. Expect this inconvenience to impact guest well into next year at Disney's least visited.
5. Disney phoned it in when coming to new attractions
Only one of Disney's six U.S. theme parks opened a brand new ride this summer, even after the unusual move to significantly increase ticket prices over the summer. Soarin' around the World was a retooling of an old ride, timed to open with the grand opening of Shanghai Disneyland in June, so we won't count that as a new ride, but consider it a refurbishment.
Epcot's Frozen Ever After boat ride was a crowd favorite...when it didn't break down, as it frequently did on a daily basis after making its grand debut at Epcot in June. Prolonged downtimes due to technical glitches continue to plague the ride even today.
In short, Disney's 2016 summer season may have failed to justify increasing its prices with very little that was new that they have had to offer to many disappointed guests.
Sources:
- Motley Fool: 5 Reasons Disney World Lost This Summer (9/05/16)
- We told you so! Disney stocks drops to its lowest point in 7 months since Aug. 9th's third-quarter earnings call (9/1/16)
- Motley Fool: Disney World Needs a New Charge (8/13/16)
- Skift: Disney’s Domestic Parks Had Lower Attendance, But They Still Made a Ton of Money (8/10/16)
- Theme Park Insider: Disney confirms drop in summer theme park attendance (8/09/16)
- WFTV: Disney's third-quarter earnings show revenue up, attendance down (8/09/16)
- OC Register: Attendance is down but Walt Disney Co. sets revenue record in third quarter (8/09/16)
- Orlando Sentinel: Disney turns in strong earnings despite theme park attendance declines (8/9/16)
- Judgment day: Quarterly earnings for Disney largely disappoint as predicted and result in a drop in Disney stock prices in after hours trading (8/09/16)
- Bearish forecasters brace for Disney stock to tank as earnings expected to fall well short of Wall Street expectations again during Disney's next quarterly earnings call (8/03/16)
- 5 Reasons Disney World Attendance is Falling (7/31/16)
- Motley Fool: 5 Reasons Disney World Attendance is Falling (7/31/16)
- Disney's World War Z: Forget about scary gators; deadly mosquitoes are now confirmed for spreading a pandemic of the Zika virus in Florida (7/20/16)
- OC Register: Disneyland cuts sales staff (7/14/16)
- Orlando tourist destinations start summer on a sour note (6/30/16)
- Brexit, Zika, Brazil, and upcoming Rio Summer Olympics—but not so much gators—slam prospects of tourism to Disney World and send Disney stocks plummeting downward (6/25/16)
- How will Disney perform in 2016? There are some serious concerns from many shareholders about Disney's future (6/04/16)
- Travel advisory: Tourists warned to 'think twice' about visiting Walt Disney World in Florida over Zika scare (5/30/16)
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