Disney World Reports Flat Attendance

[Carol]

Disney World Reports Flat Attendance
By Jason Garcia, Orlando Sentinel
3:51 PM EST, November 26, 2010


Attendance at Walt Disney World remained largely unchanged this summer, Disney disclosed Friday, even as overall tourist traffic into Orlando began climbing with the opening of Universal Orlando's Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

Disney said its Orlando theme-park attendance was "within a percentage point" of last year's total during the company's fiscal fourth quarter, after adjusting for the effect of an accounting quirk that left this year's fourth quarter with one less week than last year's.

The grudging disclosure came only after inquiries from the Orlando Sentinel about why the Walt Disney Co. did not report Disney World's attendance during a Nov. 11 conference call to discuss the company's quarterly earnings or in its year-end financial report, filed late Wednesday with federal regulators. In both instances, Disney reported year-over-year changes in attendance only for its two U.S. theme-park resorts combined.

It was the first quarter in at least five years that Disney had not disclosed separate attendance trends for Disney World in Central Florida and Disneyland in Southern California.

The move prompted speculation among many industry followers that Disney executives were attempting to avoid having Disney World's performance contrasted with results at Universal Orlando, where attendance has skyrocketed 36 percent since the opening of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Universal's Islands of Adventure theme park. Wizarding World formally opened June 18, just before the beginning of Disney's fiscal fourth quarter, which ran from July 4 until Oct. 2.

Disney said Friday that it was not attempting to shield Disney World's performance by bundling it with Disneyland. Rather, Disney said it recently made a corporate decision to halt its longstanding practice of revealing separate attendance results for Florida and California.

Going forward, the company said, it will disclose only combined attendance for its domestic theme parks.

"Our reporting of park financials has evolved over time, given our international expansion efforts, and we believe this disclosure is appropriate to our business as it is conducted today," Disney spokeswoman Kim Prunty said.

Although the company would not say which way Disney World's attendance moved during its fiscal fourth quarter, the "within a percentage point" swing appears to have been a decline.

The company had earlier said that overall U.S. attendance rose only 1 percent during the quarter — and that was with attendance at Disney California Adventure, one of the company's two Anaheim, Calif., parks, up 20 percent since the June opening of "World of Color," a nighttime water show. Also, Disney had already disclosed that fourth-quarter occupancy in its 25,000 Orlando hotel rooms and time-share suites slipped to 83 percent, down one percentage point from a year ago and 6 percentage points from its pre-recession level. And data compiled by the Sentinel show that ridership aboard Disney's Magical Express, the free shuttle Disney operates between Orlando International Airport and its hotels, sank 3.5 percent between July and September.

Still, Disney says it has seen several promising trends. The company noted, for instance, that guest spending in its domestic parks rose 6 percent and per-room hotel spending rose 5 percent during the quarter, as Disney reduced the size of available discounts. Disney also said reservations at its U.S. hotels during the October-through-December quarter are running 5 percent ahead of last year's pace.

The company's decision to stop reporting separate attendance results will make it more difficult to gauge the performance of Disney World, which is by far Central Florida's largest employer, with 62,200 workers. Experts generally consider attendance to be the most important operating indicator for a theme park, though other factors, such as guest spending, are also significant drivers.

Disney World, which has four theme parks that drew an estimated 48 million visitors in 2009, dwarfs Disneyland, which has two theme parks that drew 22 million people last year. As a result, Disney's overall U.S. park results often closely mirror its Orlando performance.

But not always: During Disney's fiscal fourth quarter last year, for instance, the company's total U.S. attendance grew 3 percent. But that was because attendance at Disneyland leapt 15 percent, more than offsetting a 3 percent slump at Disney World.

[Dyanna]

Well since Disney has not added anything majorly "new" I would not think attendance would grow. I think if they brought back a "theme" like A Year of a Million Dreams" they may do better.

[Ian]

I, for one, am happy to see WDW getting its rear end kicked. They slacked and slacked and slacked and cut and cut and cut and did absolutely nothing to keep guests coming back for more because they got arrogant and believed they could with no repercussions.

And then Universal caught them with their collective pants down with WWoHP. Hopefully, this will spur some positive changes at WDW to counter Universal's superior offering.

And you know even this whole sudden shift to only releasing domestic park numbers just smacks of their arrogance. They had no trouble releasing their individual attendance numbers when they were dominating, but all of a sudden things don't go their way and they get all sneaky. And they can't even come out and admit it ... they have to cobble together some mumbo-jumbo about it being "appropriate to their business as it's conducted today."

Really?? Please ... they've been international since the early 80's! How dumb do they think we are??

[Tink1]

I, for one, am happy to see WDW getting its rear end kicked. They slacked and slacked and slacked and cut and cut and cut and did absolutely nothing to keep guests coming back for more because they got arrogant and believed they could with no repercussions.

And then Universal caught them with their collective pants down with WWoHP. Hopefully, this will spur some positive changes at WDW to counter Universal's superior offering.

And you know even this whole sudden shift to only releasing domestic park numbers just smacks of their arrogance. They had no trouble releasing their individual attendance numbers when they were dominating, but all of a sudden things don't go their way and they get all sneaky. And they can't even come out and admit it ... they have to cobble together some mumbo-jumbo about it being "appropriate to their business as it's conducted today."

Really?? Please ... they've been international since the early 80's! How dumb do they think we are??

Excellent post!

N

[Buttercup]

Is it selfish of me to be glad that attendance hasn't grown? So that there might be less of this for me to put up with:

[DizneyRox]

Surprise, surprise! I've been saying this for a while and constantly getting corrected... Oh well, no bubbles, no troubles!

Guess we answered another question about what Harry Potter Land was going to do to WDW as well.

[Gator]

Is it selfish of me to be glad that attendance hasn't grown? So that there might be less of this for me to put up with:

Nope. I was thinking the same thing. What's great is that attendance will be the same AND I get free dining.

I'm sure Harry Potter is taking some of that "tweener" crowd. I don't know if there's anything WDW has to compete with that age group. Maybe if they bought the marketing rights to Lord of the Rings, me and all my white&nerdy friends will show up a lot more often.

[princessgirls]

I, for one, am happy to see WDW getting its rear end kicked. They slacked and slacked and slacked and cut and cut and cut and did absolutely nothing to keep guests coming back for more because they got arrogant and believed they could with no repercussions.

And then Universal caught them with their collective pants down with WWoHP. Hopefully, this will spur some positive changes at WDW to counter Universal's superior offering.

And you know even this whole sudden shift to only releasing domestic park numbers just smacks of their arrogance. They had no trouble releasing their individual attendance numbers when they were dominating, but all of a sudden things don't go their way and they get all sneaky. And they can't even come out and admit it ... they have to cobble together some mumbo-jumbo about it being "appropriate to their business as it's conducted today."

Really?? Please ... they've been international since the early 80's! How dumb do they think we are??

Ian...you are so right!
I'm thinking that the so called "bean counters" never bet on a large amount of educated consumers...or on the Powers of Harry Potter. Got to give it to Universal, they got themselves a good thing going on.
Julie

[Ian]

Most of the corporate suits are on the five year plan anyway. Gone are the days where a CEO/CFO/CIO/ETC stays for much longer than that, so really, what do they care about long term results? That will be someone elses problem...

Yeah, that's another problem wrought by stock options.

When you stand to make $100 million by exercising your options, what motivation do you have to care about the company beyond the next two to three years?

[Joannelet]

I, for one, am happy to see WDW getting its rear end kicked. They slacked and slacked and slacked and cut and cut and cut and did absolutely nothing to keep guests coming back for more because they got arrogant and believed they could with no repercussions.

And then Universal caught them with their collective pants down with WWoHP. Hopefully, this will spur some positive changes at WDW to counter Universal's superior offering.

And you know even this whole sudden shift to only releasing domestic park numbers just smacks of their arrogance. They had no trouble releasing their individual attendance numbers when they were dominating, but all of a sudden things don't go their way and they get all sneaky. And they can't even come out and admit it ... they have to cobble together some mumbo-jumbo about it being "appropriate to their business as it's conducted today."

Really?? Please ... they've been international since the early 80's! How dumb do they think we are??

Ian you hit the nail on the head with this!!!
I am shocked that they aren't releasing numbers any longer. Wow.....