Theme Park attendance figures for the last decade

[hopemax]

I'm tired of looking these up, and I'm sure you guys are too. I made a webpage, still tracking down the couple holes and go farther back...

http://www.geocities.com/hopemax.geo/attendance.htm

[All Aboard]

According to this data, 2001 Universal Orlando attendance was down 9.2% v. 2000, and WDW was down 7.4% v. 2000. Isn't this contrary to the data in a major thread we have going on right now? Am I mixing things up?

[hopemax]

In the other thread it was comparing attendance 1999 vs 2001, a two year look vs. a 1 year look.

In 1999 Universal had 11.5 million
2001 12.8 million, an increase of about 11%

WDW in 1999 42.6 million
WDW in 2001 40 million, a decrease of about 6.5%

What I found kinda interesting is the Disney vs Non-Disney parks (USF, IOA, SWO) over the decade.

1992 WDW: 29.5 million
2001 WDW: 40 million up 35.6% (now including AK)

1992 non-Disney: 10.8 million
2001 non-Disney: 17.9 up 65.8% (now including IOA)

or if we use the 2000 figures, to take 9-11 effects out of the equation. Disney was up 46.4% and the non-Disney's were up 78.7%

[All Aboard]

And also interesting is the impact of IOA on the Universal total v. AK's impact on WDW total.

Using the "year before park opened to first full year of operation", WDW grew from 39.2 million in 1997 to 42.6 million in 1999. That's growth of 3.4 million guests or 8.7%.

Universal Orlando grew from 8.9 million guests in 1998 to 14.1 million in 2000. That's growth of 5.2 mllion guests or 58%.

I know that the percent comparison is invalid since growing from 1 park to 2 parks will certainly yield higher % growth. But, the nominal growth number variance is significant (5.2 million v. 3.4 million,) especially if you dig into the cannibalization factor.

In the first year of AK operation (and it's only a partial year), MK dropped 8.2%, Epcot fell 10.2% and the Studios lost 8.7%. That trend continued in 1999 when MK lost another 2.6%, Epcot 4.7% and the Studios 8.4%. USF lost 9% of its guests in 1999, but stayed flat the next year.

So, over the two year period that each new park opened, AK reached 8.6 million guests, but cost the other three parks a combined 5.3 million guests. IOA reached 6.0 million and only cost USF 800,000 guests.

[Bstanley]

Poor little AK, it really should have waited to be opened until after Asia was ready - not only to avoid the stigmata of the 'half-day' park appellation, but also so that the attendance statistics wouldn't have been skewed by the massive 25th Anniversary celebration that brought the masses to WDW in 1997.

If AK had just waited to be opened until 1999 we would have been able to see whether the 1997 masses were a '25th related' bubble or whether they would have really continued to visit in 1998 without an AK.

[All Aboard]

True, the 25th had an impact. But, AK continued to cannibalize in 1999. The other three parks still lost 1.7 million guests from '98 to '99.

[Bstanley]

Not being sure where these numbers come from or how they treat people going to 2 or more of WDW's parks in a single day I'm not sure what happened...

Example - you showed AK in a 'bad' light, I'll show AK in a good light:

If these numbers are from Disney sources AV explained in a different thread that the first park someone visited during the day gets all the credit for that guest that day. Basically a guest doesn't get counted twice. So to total up the number of visitors to WDW all you would need to do is add up all the park attendance numbers.

That total shows that the number of guests to WDW grew each year until 2001, obviously a bad year :-(. It jumped dramatically from '96 to '97 (in response I believe to the massive ad campaign, the Pink Castle, F-16s flying overhead, a potential New York Senator on the podium with Roy Jr. along with that other guy... etc) , but after '97 attendance still continued to grow even above the excellent growth in '96-'97. From '96 to '00 attendance growth was slightly more than 8 million people.

Which coincidentally matches AK attendance numbers...so what we have is a massive celebration attracting new customers to WDW, and then a new park opened that manages to keep them coming back with the result that we have a more than 25% growth in people and presumably a more than 25% growth in money spent by them from '96 until '00.

OKley Dokley - your turn! :-)

[larworth]

Before we get too carried away with these numbers we should probably make sure they are consistent with the revenue story, but assuming they are:

I can see how this attendance data supports the cannibalization theory. Disney had started to experience a revival in 1995. The three years prior to DAK opening overall attendance was growing at a rate of 10% a year. DAK opens and growth is suddenly only half what it had been. Not hard to imagine they had assumed they would have gotten this level of growth without a new park.

Some of the revival must surely have been driven by the strong economy (more disposable income) and a renewed interest in things Disney. A positive attendance driver irregardless of new attractions or promotioins. These fundamentals had not appeared to change, so they were probably expecting high growth plus a DAK kicker (not lower growth).


If we compare annual growth rates at WDW and US we see an interesting phenomenon. There was only one year (1997) when both properties grew at a similar rate. I was a little surprised to see this dichotomy.

..........WDW......US

92-94 Flat.....>10%
95-98 10%.....Flat
99-00 Flat......>20%

With growth flat post DAK at WDW, and growth very high at US post IOA it does give a different impression of each's impact.

[All Aboard]

From '96 to '00 attendance growth was slightly more than 8 million people... Which coincidentally matches AK attendance numbers...so what we have is a massive celebration attracting new customers to WDW, and then a new park opened that manages to keep them coming bacNot sure exactly why that's positive. What it tells me is that WDW had an average annual growth rate of about 5% during that period. I would expect them to have darn close to that WITHOUT adding a new park.

Pull AK out and you lose all 8.3 million of those visitors? No growth for 4 years? I really don't think so. Pull AK out and come close to the same number of guests without it is a more plausible outcome to me.

[Bstanley]

Pull AK out and come close to the same number of guests without it is a more plausible outcome to me.

I don't agree. The first three years of the data show flat or negative growth is possible even at WDW when there's nothing special going on. Without the new gate I believe it is more plausible that the last three years of the Nineties would have been negative or flat following the '97 bubble. Shoot - even with the new gate '99 and '00 only show 1-2% growth.

[All Aboard]

Hmmm, true... we cannot know for sure. How 'bout this one: Seems the 25th Anniversary Celebration had a bigger net impact on total attendance than did the development of AK. How much was spent on each? I'll stop here, I'm running out of gas. :)

[larworth]

But it wasn't just a 97 bubble.

Growth in 95 was 13%
Growth in 96 was 7%
Growth in 97 was 12%

After three years of high growth what do you think the planners would have been estimating for 98 without a new park. I bet it was somewhere in the 5-10% range. What market signals would have warranted a deviation from recent history? Sure wouldn't have been the economy. If we assume they were bullish on the general growth fundamentals they would assume this plus x% more from the new park.

We won't know what attendance would have been without DAK, but I can see where the resulting growth was less than they had expected. At the end of 98, if 5% growth was considered your baseline, it would be a reasonable conclusion that DAK's impact was primarily one of cannibalization. The flat 99/00 results probably just reinforced the notion that Orlando was a saturated market.

[Bstanley]

Since the 25th anniversary started Oct. 1, '96 and the advertising had started substantially before that I think an interesting portion of the 7% growth for '96 actually relates to 'the 25th bubble'.

Perhaps the 'new' folks that were convinced to come down to the 25th celebration would have kept coming year after year after that without the new gate, but I personally doubt it.

[raidermatt]

IoA opened in 1999, correct?

Did it open Jan. 1st, or was it a partial year?

If its a partial year, the numbers we keep seeing comparing 2001 attendance vs. 1999 are skewed. The later in the year it opened, the more skewed they are.

In other words, it isn't exactly fair to say Universal's attendance was up 11% if IoA wasn't open for all of 1999.

It would be like comparing this year's DLResort attendance to last year's...raw numbers won't work because DCA wasn't opened the whole year.

[raidermatt]

Bumping...

When did IOA open?

Thanks...

[Bstanley]

I seem to remember it opening early second quarter. Something like a late April to early May timeframe.

[raidermatt]

Assuming you mean 1999, bstanley, then Newsweek has made a HUGE misrepresentation in their comparison of attendance figures from 1999 to 2001.

While it is true that Universal grew 11% and Disney dropped 6%, it doesn't point out that the mid-year opening of IOA makes Universal's increase look larger than it really is.

IoA drew 3.4 million in its partial year. In 2000, it drew 6.0, and in 2001 it drew 5.5.

And yes, a few million makes a material difference in the percentages.

If IoA had been open all of 1999, and drew 5.5 million (equal to 2001, less than 2000), the drop in percentages between Universal and Disney are virtually equal. 5.9% vs. 6.1%.

Even if IoA were only credited with 5.0 million in its first year, Universal would still have a drop of 2.3% from 1999 to 2001.

When you consider there is already a margin of error built into these numbers because they are 3rd party estimates, the Newsweek interpretation becomes irresponsible at best.

Especially when one considers that when making these same comparisons using 2000 vs. 2001, Universal's drop of 9.2% is LARGER than Disney's 7.4%.

It maybe true that Universal is recovering faster in 2002, but that doesn't excuse the bogus numbers used in their article.

[Bstanley]

Doh! - Yes IoA opened in 1999.

What? - an article in a mainline 'news' journal with an agenda? I'm appalled I say - appalled! ;-)

Considering that Newsweek is owned by the Washington Post company the only surprise is that they chose to make Universal look better than Disney.

Perhaps The Big ME managed to make a permanent enemy of Donald Graham when he tried to build Disney's American Adventure next to Graham's Virginia estate? ;-)

[larworth]

Maybe, they did do Disney a favor. They could have just as easily chosen to compare growth between 98 and 2001. It would have looked even worse (US + 44%, WDW - 4%).

Bstanly

Back to the anniversary bubble. Let's assume it did create double digit growth in the fourth quarter of 96. Attendance for the first three quarters was still around 5%. With some people postponning trips to be a part of the celebration that must have seemed like a pretty decent baseline level to expect. Especially, when the growth the year before had been 13%.

I can very easily see how they would conclude market dynamics were giving them baseline growth of at least 5%. New attractions, celebrations and new parks would be adders on top of that. So going into 98 they prepared their business plan expecting that 5% baseline growth plus the DAK adder.

With 98 only showing 6% growth it would have caused them to underperform their business plan. It would look like DAK had only a marginal growth impact (the extra 1%). DAK was labeled as being a disappointment, due to cannibalization.

When 99 comes in flat, is the message now one of a declining interest in the rest of WDW, that is really being masked by DAK's influence? Or is it more likely taken as confimation that DAK is having little impact on overall attendance. I say that was their story in 98 and they stuck to it.

[raidermatt]

Maybe, they did do Disney a favor. They could have just as easily chosen to compare growth between 98 and 2001. It would have looked even worse (US + 44%, WDW - 4%).

Nah, I guess they had to keep it at least somewhat responsible. ;)

[raidermatt]

With 98 only showing 6% growth it would have caused them to underperform their business plan. It would look like DAK had only a marginal growth impact (the extra 1%). DAK was labeled as being a disappointment, due to cannibalization.

But in looking at the numbers across the board, I think they would have realized that even if they had thought they would get 5% growth without AK, that scenario clearly didn't play out. USF and SWF both had zero growth (quite an amazing coincidence, by the way). DL, USH, and SWSD all experienced negative growth.

So Disney would have to realize that their 5% "automatic" growth would likely not have materialized. Assuming flat attendance, AK would have been responsible for the entire 6% growth.

That said, I'm sure 6% still falls short of what they were hoping. Given AK's partial year, I would guess they probably realistically hoped for about a 10-12% bump. Admittedly though, that number came straight out of my (pick an orifice).

[larworth]

I initially looked at the growth rates of the other properties to see if it provided any kind of reference point. As I noted (look at my first post) there has almost been a reverse correlation between WDW and US growth. When US grows WDW is flat and vice versa. So, a flat year at US in 98 would probably not been much of a signal for them. SW seems unrelated, too.

It is all conjecture, just saying I can see how they might have come to this conclusion. I'm sure they had rheems of survey data to help understand the impact as well.

[raidermatt]

Sorry, I now remember reading that yesterday.

I went back and looked at the year-to-year, and I do think there is a pretty strong correlation.

1996 - WDW up 5.7%, USF up 5.0%
1997 - WDW up 12.0% (with celebration), USF up 6.0%
1998 - AK's first year
1999 - IoA's first year
2000 - WDW up 1.4%, USF up 22.6% (IoA's 1st full year*)
2001 - WDW down 7.4%, USf down 9.2%


1993, 1994, and 1995 have bigger gaps. Not sure why, but maybe it has to do with Disney's resort expansions...


*US was flat this year. So the entire 22.6% was from IoA going from 3.4 to 6.0. If IoA's "full year equivalent" increase were 1 million, instead of 2.6 (generous, by the way), you get 7.6%. Since the "annualized" increase was probably less than 1 million, the number would drop even more, making the comparision much closer.

It is all conjecture, just saying I can see how they might have come to this conclusion. I'm sure they had rheems of survey data to help understand the impact as well.

Agreed.