What are some of the ways disney can boost attendance at its Florida theme parks

Hello tom64,

I was debating if I should attempt to answer this question. After
seeing, and agreeing with most of the comments that have been made - I
put your question to the internet search test. Here is what I came up
with:

According to the members of the first website I found, they think that
Disney should focus on the theme parks in the U.S.A ( Florida,
California ), instead of trying to expand. In doing so - they would
have more resources to fix some of the unfinished areas of the Florida
theme park, offer more rides, and thus create a new reason for more
people to visit. Here are the thoughts of one member of the site :

Excerpt from Theme Park Insider -
"Walt Disney Studios is reportedly a nightmare!...Disneyland's record
of new rides makes Epcot look like Construction Central..."
http://www.themeparkinsider.com/news/response.cfm?ID=618

One person wrote in to the editor at the Orlando Sentinel and
suggested lowering the price for admission. We all agree that a lower
price anywhere is certainly a way to attract more customers, and
Disney does have rather high prices. Here is an excerpt from the
article :

Orlando Sentinel Atricle
"...Disney powers that be use some common sense and drop the
outrageous daily admission fees of $50-plus perhaps to $40 or less..."
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/opinion/letters/orl-edple08x100802oct08,0,3370029.story?coll=orl-opin-letters-headlines

Then of course there are my own opinions, and the opinions of my
fellow researchers below. Here are mine :

- Give away random Disney memorabilia at the door. I'm sure there is a
warehouse full of this stuff. Disney has a loyal following of
collectors in many different areas, and to tap into this market could
open a large influx of visitors.

- Offer stock ownership for frequent visitors that are interested. One
stock per visit wouldn't hurt in my opinion, as it's more of a
keepsake. Once a visitor hits 'landmark' visits, they have the
opportunity to earn even more.

- As in the comments, the concessions are outrageous. One meal should
be included with the price of admission. If this is not feasible, then
maybe a voucher for one meal with purchase of another.


They may seem like minor points, but every little bit helps. Disney
has been around a long time, and the tweaks of marketing will need to
be on a smaller scale, in larger quantity. If all else fails, they
should try a 'free hot dog day'. :-) People just love free stuff.

I waived the concern for a good rating, to answer the question
seriously, with a twist of 'lemon laughs'. If you want clarification
on anything before rating this answer, please ask and I would be glad
to offer more insight.

Thanks for the very interesting question!

SgtCory

---

Clarification of Answer by sgtcory-ga on 23 Oct 2002 15:37 PDT

We researchers usually list how we found the information. Due to the
nature of the question, I hastily forgot to add this information. Here
is my search strategy -

To find the answer I searched Google for :
' disney attendance "they should" Florida ':
://www.google.com/search?q=disney+attendance+%22they+should%22+Florida

Thanks again -
SgtCory

In my humble opinion, free admission would bring the largest possible
increase in visitors.
Of course, this concept also has some drawbacks.

Scriptor

scriptor, you are a card.

How about figuring out ways to reduce the length of the lines for rides?

aceresearcher

Lowering those obscene concession prices would probably go a long way,
too.  Reinitating the old (really nice) AAA travel club discounts
could encourage people to come again, during the off-peak season
especially.

I was just down there a few months ago, and liked Universal's park
much more.  Disney has FastPass which you can show up at the
ride/event at a scheduled time, but once you have one, you can't get
another until the time printed (normally 3+ hours from the present
time).  Universal's Express allows you to get as many Express passes
at a time, up until they ran out (usually happens around 4pm or later
depending on popularity of ride), I saved *hours* of time with this.

The other main complaint, is I wanted to go to multiple parks (Disney
has, I belive 5 parks) on one day, but their only option was a 4-day
pass for all parks (around $200) or 1-day 1-park for around $50. 
Universal's pricing structure is much better.  I was actually able to
get a 5-day pass for both parks for the price of 2 days on their
website.

Universal was also much more entertaining with their shows and most of
their rides from what I went on.  Although Who wants to be a
Millionaire was excellent at Disney (only went to the MGM park.)

Thanks,

Gambo

I was there three weeks ago.

The prices for food was very high, but then again, all theme parks are
like that.  Certainly lowering them would give them a competitive
advantage.  I take the high prices as a companies way of saying "we've
got a captive audience, so I've got no problem taking advantage of
you."  Not a very good attitude, although I can see from the company's
view, the nice profit margins in the food segment.  Would more
reasonable prices encourage more visitors to attend?  Certainly.

I think when people are evaluating where to go on vacation, one of the
major considerations is "value."  Certainly, the gambling industry
(thinking of Vegas) are the experts at creating value.  Rock bottom
prices for rooms, meals, free shows, etc. is what has propelled the
city's enormous growth over the past 20 years.

Back to value and Disney.  I think Disney can create value to their
customers by listening to them.  Not once, was I offered a suggestion
box or an e-mail asking how was my vacation.  Frankly, I was a bit
surprised, given Disney's reputation of being a well-oiled machine. 
The only perspective they can see through operations through is their
own.  What they really need to do is to determine what was the
'customer experience.'

For example, after travelling from LA to Orlando for 12 hours, at my
arrival at Disney's hotel, there was a huge check-in line that just
wouldn't move (i.e. customers asking about the park, where's this,
where's that, etc.).  I stood in this line for 1 hour (what seemed
like an eternity).  First impression of Disney was BAD.  The point is,
Disney never let me tell them about the bad experience I had.  If they
don't know what the problems are from the customers' view, how can
they fix it.  If the problems continue, will customers return?  Maybe
yes, maybe no, but why take a chance.

The pricing on the parks is a bit expensive.  The lines were great
(resulting is a good park experience), but I could see they were
losing a ton of money because of the low attendance.  While they did
offer a tiered reduce rate for incrementally longer stays, it was
still higher than many of the competing amusement parks (in LA).  I
realize they have their fixed cost to cover, but the question becomes
is it better to have 1 million visitors at $60/head or 2 million
visitors at $40/head.  Additionally, more (better) promotional
activity can't hurt, such as perhaps (a) free meal(s) with certain
packages.  The freebee I got (after spending $1,200) was a Disney
trading pin (value in my opinion, about $1).  Not very exciting.

To their credit, the bus transportation system they have their was
awesome.  We must have ridden the bus from the hotel to the various
parks at least 15 times during the week we were there.  Not once did
we wait more than 5 minutes.  It was really terrific.

Hope the comment helps a little.