Disney's ticket price hikes on Sunday will push down park attendance in 2017 even more than last year

Large parts of Disneyland, including attractions and shows, will be shut down
until well into 2019 for the construction of Star Wars Land, so with so little to
offer in terms of rides and shows now, was it a good time to jack up ticket prices?
Disney again jacked up its ticket prices for single-day admissions and annual pass holders in all its domestic theme parks on Sunday, but with little to offer in terms of new attractions, restaurants and shows for the coming year, we expect that potential visitors to the resorts will balk at the higher prices.

Last year, Disney introduced seasonal, demand ticketing prices with three different pricing tiers depending on the time of the year.

It will now cost $119 to go to most of the Disney World theme parks and $124 to go to one of the Disneyland parks in Anaheim on Peak days, generally for spring break, summer, and the Christmas season, up $5 from last year. On Peak days, the Magic Kingdom at Disney World will cost $124, which is unchanged from last year.


For mid-tier tickets on Regular days, it will now cost $107 for most parks at Disney World parks and $110 at Disneyland parks, both up $5 from last year. On Regular days, the Magic Kingdom will cost $115, up $5 from last year.

Disney raises ticket prices again...
It will also now cost $99 to go to one of the Disney World parks and $97 to go to one of the Disneyland parks on Value days, the lowest-priced days of the year, up $2 from last year.

These ticket prices are all for adults, which Disney considers to be anyone 10-years-old or older. Tickets for children 3 to 9 will also be more expensive, as will the cost of annual passes.

Platinum passes at Disney World, with no blockout dates, will now cost $679, up $30 from last year. Florida-resident Gold passes with blockout dates during Christmas and spring break will now cost $559, up $10.

While in California, the price of their two highest annual passes, $849 Signature and $1,049 Signature Plus, are unchanged from last year; however, the remainder of the annual passes at Disneyland will see price hikes: $619 for Deluxe (up $20), $469 for SoCal (up $10), and $339 for SoCal Select (up $10.)


The price of parking at the Disneyland Resort is also going up to $20, up $2 from last year as will the prices of everything else you buy inside the parks.

Is greed behind Disney's constant ticket price hikes?
All this spells big trouble for Disney's theme parks and resorts segment for fiscal 2017 because there is very little the domestic theme parks offer this year in terms of new attractions and shows. The same pretty much happened in 2016 when Disney first introduced a price hike in terms of the new demand pricing scheme.

With the shutdown of a large number of rides, restaurants, and shows, to accommodate construction of a new Star Wars Land, set to be completed in 2019, there wasn't much for park visitors to look forward to when Disney hiked the prices about the same time last year, so attendance plummeted.

In each of the last two fiscal quarters, domestic theme park attendance numbers dropped by  a whopping10% and 5%, respectively. This year, even more rides and shows are being shut down for re-theming or are being permanently closed for new construction.


Disneyland closed down its very popular new version of the electrical parade, Paint the Night, to save money just bring back the decades old Electrical Parade which is disappointing many visitors, and they have shut down its spectacular 60th Anniversary Disneyland Forever fireworks show for the same budgetary reasons. Thus, there is no incentive for more visitors to come, given that Disneyland is offering less for the money, but at a higher price now.

While at Disney World, they only plan on opening Pandora - World of Avatar in late May and Rivers of Light on February 17th at Disney's Animal Kingdom and a new fireworks show, Happily Ever After Nighttime Spectacular over at the Magic Kingdom. Everything else is pretty much small potatoes, which will not bring in the crowds to justify the price hikes.

Disney World has experienced attendance declines in three of the last four fiscal quarters, and a big reason for the slide was due to last February's steep price hikes through demand pricing. To overcome the sticker shock this time around, Disney needs a lot of new and exciting attractions and shows to help their customers overcome their reluctance to pay more, which it may not have to offer visitors this year.


We expect the next earnings calls for Disney to again be brutal, particularly for its theme parks and resorts segment. The key metric to look for is how much park attendance numbers will drop next quarter; however, since Disney has had to bail out Disneyland Paris and Hong Kong recently and attendance at Disneyland Shanghai has been drying up in recent months, it's going to be extra brutal for at next another quarter or two.


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