Originally Posted By TP2000 The whole global theme park industry was in a huge funk in '09, which is not surprising given the massive global recession. Disney's Florida parks eeked out tiny growth in the 0.5% to 1.0% range. And bucking all other global trends is Disneyland Resort in Anaheim. Disneyland up 8.0% and DCA up an astonishing 9.5%! In a huge national recession. Without any major new attractions. In a local SoCal economy that is nearing depression. That's just amazing. That AP payment plan was a stroke of genius.
Originally Posted By trekkeruss It will be interesting to see how TWWOHP affects IOA (which must be a ghost town, considering it gets even fewer visits than HKDL!)
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt >>3. Tokyo Disneyland, 13,646,000 -4.5%<< >>5. Tokyo DisneySea, 12,004,000 -4.0%<< TDL Resort's attendance is in decline. Interesting. >>11. Disney's California Adventure, 6,095,000 +9.5%<< A 10% increase without any major attractions? That's very impressive. Cue the 2fer1 arguments.
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt US parks ranked: 1. up 1.0% 17,233,000 MAGIC KINGDOM at Walt Disney World Lake Buena Vista, FL, USA Visitors 2. up 8.0% 15,900,000 DISNEYLAND Anaheim, CA, USA Visitors 3. up 0.5% 10,990,000 EPCOT at Walt Disney World Lake Buena Vista, FL, USA Visitors 4. up 1.0% 9,700,000 DISNEY’S HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS at Walt Disney World Lake Buena Vista, FL, USA Visitors 5. up 0.5% 9,590,000 DISNEY’S ANIMAL KINGDOM at Walt Disney World Lake Buena Vista, FL, USA Visitors 6. up 9.5% 6,095,000 DISNEY’S CALIFORNIA ADVENTURE Anaheim, CA, USA Visitors 7. down 6.8% 5,800,000 SEAWORLD FLORIDA Orlando, FL, USA Visitors 8. down 12.0% 5,400,000 UNIVERSAL STUDIOS at Universal Orlando Orlando, FL, USA Visitors 9. down 13.8% 4,500,000 ISLANDS OF ADVENTURE at Universal Orlando Orlando, FL, USA Visitors 10. down 6.0% 4,308,000 UNIVERSAL STUDIOS HOLLYWOOD Universal City, CA, USA visitors I wonder how much of that decline IoA will pick up this year after Harry Potter opens?
Originally Posted By mousermerf Remember, Toy Story Mania opened June 2008, so 2009 is its first full year. Not to mention the hype of the overhaul - other parks trend up right before major additions open too. The excitements about the new attraction(s) gets the park more positive word of mouth.
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt But DL increased too at roughly the same percentage, so it seems like the increase at DLR was across the board.
Originally Posted By mousermerf Side note: Epcot's pretty much "stalled" as far as growth for the last few years. At the same time, the park is going through the paces to increase capacity in dining... Just sayin..
Originally Posted By TP2000 But a huge bump in attendance 18 months before the next new ride opens? (Little Mermaid - June, 2011) Obviously this huge gain has a lot to do with the free on your birthday thing morphing into AP payment plans for cash-strapped SoCal'ers. But still, it's a giant gain in an otherwise dismal marketplace. Knott's Berry Farm had 3,333,000 with a decline of -6.5%. Ouch. I just bought some Knott's boysenberry preserves at Pavilions tonight, so maybe that will help.
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt I think this is at least the second year in a row that Knott's has declined. Not good. I think it's the same with Universal's US parks.
Originally Posted By mousermerf That's not good - that means Knotts is in the red or near it. 10,000 admissions per day is the base-line to cover operational costs for a park like Epcot. Yes, Knotts is smaller but not -that much- smaller.
Originally Posted By TP2000 An annual pass to Knott's with no blockout dates is $65.00, and an adult day ticket is $45.00, so you can't say it's not cheap. Disneyland raised ticket prices twice in '09 if I remember correctly, to $72.00. Clearly TDA is doing something right in a horrible economy. No wonder they are scouting out land for expansion rides.
Originally Posted By mousermerf Remember that seasonal AP's are only like $169 though. That's not a lot of profit considering how often the AP's attend. Compare that the Epcot's After 4 pass at $148 and which do you think is making more money? IF DLR had more high end shopping and dining and retail I could see how cutting the cost of admission was a good diea, but right now they're just shooting themselves in the foot. Assuming they only go once a month it's only $8 per admission. That's 1/9 of the total admission charge "needed" to cover costs.
Originally Posted By CuriouserConstance mousermerf, it's funny how protective you are of your florida parks.
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt It is funny. Similarly there are people who are even more defensive about the Oh So Fabulous Tokyo parks. I'm curious to know what their take is on the decreases over there.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 <Not to mention the hype of the overhaul - other parks trend up right before major additions open too. The excitements about the new attraction(s) gets the park more positive word of mouth. > Do they? Didn't help IOA in advance of the HP addition.
Originally Posted By TP2000 Good point Dabob2. I've never heard of the concept of parks "trending up" in the years leading up to new attractions. If anything, the graphs showing attendance through the decades seem to disprove that theory. With the icing on the cake being the dismal IOA numbers for '09.
Originally Posted By mousermerf It depends on the attraction - with DCA you have all the APs hanging out in DL. They get wind of something new, and that Blue Sky Cellar, and they have a reason to set foot in DCA. It would work the same at Uni/IOA is Uni had better attendance.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 I don't think that's the reason. Uni Fla. is mostly vacationers rather than locals. If I, sitting in NY, knew something I wanted to see like HP was opening in 2010, would I visit in 2009, or 2010? I think at a place that mostly draws from out of town, if anything a well-known addition could DEPRESS previous-year attendance, with people waiting till it opened to come. As for the DCA numbers, it depends how that outfit counts things. Do they count first-gate clicks? I doubt they count people who stay 12 hours at DL and just hopped over to see the Blue Sky Cellar as DCA attendees. Especially since I've never seen the cellar that busy, either in person or from reports. I think the simplest explanation is usually the best. People are just starting to warm more to DCA, TSMM has proven popular, and DLR in general improved its numbers, perhaps because of the AP-payment plan, and perhaps because a lot of SoCalers are doing "stay-cations" during the recession.
