Sparking the Magic: The Impact of Price Cuts on Disney's Appeal

A roller coaster is going down a mountain.

Unlocking the magic of 55,000 theme park visitor feedback!

While many observers believe Disney theme parks are suffering from a slowdown in attendance, we see price cuts reviving interest in visiting and recent attendees feeling better about wait times.

Analyzing 55,000 pieces of feedback from “The Crowd” of theme park visitors, including more than 20,000 from across Disney’s parks, from July 2022 through July 2023, we find:

Key Takeaways

July Visit Intent^1,2 for Disney parks is down 2% compared to last July, but up 1% vs. a month and three months ago. Given debate about how much Disney attendance will suffer from January price hikes, Disney’s recent Visit Intent trends being better than the rest of the industry is a positive sign for its relative growth outlook. Visit intent for other theme parks we follow was flat vs. three months ago and down 4% from a year ago.
Disney’s new holiday price cuts seem to be helping future attendance. Disney parks have cut Christmas ticket prices, which seems to be pleasing customers. In addition to an increase in Visit Intent, net favorability toward Disney parks’ Prices improved 2% in July vs. June.
Customers have been feeling happier about ride wait times, indicating that wait times have likely come down. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that shorter wait times and greater discounts are indicating lower attendance. Net favorability³ towards wait times for Disney World rose 4% the last three months, but at -50% it is still way behind the -18% average for other parks ex. Disney.
Disney’s feud with Florida political leadership seems to be hurting how many families with young children feel about the parks. Visit Intent dropped the most over the last year with visitors in their 30s and 40s, corresponding with a drop in net favorability³ toward “Family Friendly”. Both declines align with escalations in Disney’s feud that started in March 2022. Visit Intent is actually up with customers under 30 since last year.

Discover HundredX insights into Theme Park Trends:

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Compared to this time last year, Visit Intent is down for Disney World (-3%) and Disneyland (-2%). But, both Disney parks have picked up in recent months. Trends in Visit Intent have mirrored CEO Bob Iger’s recent comments, where he told CNBC that Disney parks saw a post-COVID boost in attendance in 2022 that has naturally slipped in 2023. Better recent visit intent trends vs. the industry are a positive sign for Disney’s relative growth outlook.

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The Wall Street Journal reported that Disney World ride wait times on July 4, 2023 were lower than they had been in recent years. Our data seems to confirm wait times have down. Over the past three months, Disney World customers felt notably happier (+4% net favorability) about the wait times for rides and attractions.

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Over the past three months, net favorability toward Price increased for both Disney parks by 4%. Disney has lowered prices in recent months in a bid to increase attendance. The move does seem to be working, given the recent increase in Disney parks’ Visit Intent.

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While ride wait times are down, visitors may not be as interested in going on them. Net favorability toward Rides dropped for Disney World (-5%) and Disneyland (-4%) from a peak in October to a low in June. While net favorability appears to have bounced from a bottom in June, it still has a ways to go. Disney World closed its long-standing Splash Mountain ride in January 2023, with Disneyland following suit in May. The parks plan on opening a new Princess and the Frog version of the ride in 2024.

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Interestingly, Visit Intent dropped the most for Disney parks versus last summer for visitors in their 30s and 40s (-3%) and visitors over 50 (-2%). It actually increased for young adults under 30 (1%). Visit Intent is starting to pick back up, however, for all age groups

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The Visit Intent dip with middle-aged customers – those most likely to be visiting with young children – seems linked to a drop in net favorability toward Family Friendly. It appears favorability toward Family Friendly fell in 2022 amid Disney’s feud with Florida’s political leadership. That feud took center stage again in April, after Disney sued Florida governor Ron DeSantis.

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Please contact our team for a deeper look at HundredX's theme park data, which includes 130,000 pieces of customer feedback across over 14 theme park brands (including over 50,000 on Disney parks).

All metrics presented, including Net Usage Intent (Usage Intent), and Net Positive Percent / Net Favorability are presented on a trailing three-month basis unless otherwise noted.
Visit Intent reflects the percentage of customers who plan to visit a specific brand more during the next 12 months, minus the percentage who plan to visit less. We find businesses that see customer Intent trends gain versus the industry have often seen revenue growth rates, margins and/or market share also improve versus peers.
HundredX measures Net Favorability towards a driver of customer satisfaction as Net Positive Percent (NPP), which is the percentage of customers who view a factor as a positive (reason they liked the products, people, or experiences) minus the percentage who see the same factor as a negative.

Strategy Made Smarter

HundredX works with a variety of companies and their investors to answer some of the most important strategy questions in business:

Where are customers "migrating"?
What are they saying they will use more of in the next 12 months?
What are the key drivers of their purchase decisions and financial outcomes?

Current clients see immediate benefits across multiple areas including strategy, finance, operations, pricing, investing, and marketing.

Our insights enable business leaders to define and identify specific drivers and decisions enabling them to grow their market share.

Please contact our team to learn more about which businesses across 75 industries are best positioned with customers and the decisions you can make to grow your brand’s market share.

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HundredX is a mission-based data and insights provider. HundredX does not make investment recommendations. However, we believe in the wisdom of the crowd to inform the outlook for businesses and industries. For more info on specific drivers of customer satisfaction, other companies within 75+ other industries we cover, or if you'd like to learn more about using Data for Good, please reach out: https://hundredx.com/contact.

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Consumer spending muted amid rising prices

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Consumers are navigating still-high prices with resilience. HundredX analysis, based on millions of pieces of customer feedback from July 2021 through April 2023 across 3,200+ companies, indicates inflation remains persistent, but consumers are cautiously hanging on. New Consumer Price Index (CPI) data shows prices increased 3.4% in April from a year ago, compared to 3.5% in March, which highlights a slight easing in inflation month-to-month. Still, HundredX data shows that consumers still feel negative about prices in general, pointing to inflation’s stickiness and consumer frustrations over the consistently high prices of everyday goods. Generally, we’ve seen that changes to HundredX’s Price favorability index are typically inversely correlated with movement in the CPI levels (i.e., inflation) reported by the US government.