shadden said:
I will reiterate - you are not getting gouged, you don't seem to know the meaning of that word.
Price Gouging - pricing above the market price when no alternative retailer is available, usually in reference to necessities.
You have lots of other retailers you can go to, if Disney continues to be a viable company while charging these rates, they are in fact market rates.
My wife and I went last year on our honey moon during peak prices, we are going again in May this year during regular season prices.
Both times it was/will be a lot of money, but we are willing to pay it for "Disney" Next year, we might go somewhere else, and pay much less. But its not gouging, its getting the most they can from the market, or at least, attempting to.
Everything in your post is stuff I have already posted previously. I manage a successful multi-million dollar company I don't need you to explain supply and demand to me. Focusing on my use of the word gouge is just starting an argument for the sake of arguing.
Shaden is correct. You do not seem to know the meaning of gouge; and believe me when I say that you are quite likely not the only person managing mutil-million dollar businesses on this board.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gouge Transitive Verb
Gouge: to subject to extortion or undue exaction
Extortion: to obtain from a person by force, intimidation, or undue or illegal power
So, as to your other comment about people who "are smart enough not to allow Disney to gouge them with uncompetitive pricing." De facto that makes the assumption that people who stay on property with the dining plan stupid (the opposite of smart). I don't agree with that so lets run some numbers.
Figures. Math. Math is great.
Value resort for the time I want to stay is $90 per night. Expedia says that there are 15 hotels within a 10 mile radius that are under $75 per night. Average seems to be at the high end, about $70.
So, $70. To which I have to
1) Add transportation to and from the airport.
For 3 nights at $122 round trip for the family, that adds $40.66 per night to that hotel room. Obviously the longer I stay the cheaper it is. So say I stay for 6 nights. Now that transfer is down to $20 per night.
2) Add in parking at the parks (which I get free for staying on the property) at $14 per day
Already for my "less expensive" off property hotel I have gone from $70 per night to $104 per night (Not including taxes).
Now we start with intangibles.
1) The ability to GET the discounts we are speaking of. You can't save $1000 if you haven't chosen to stay on property.
2)The ability to get on a bus without driving. That has value to myself and my family. After a long day in the park the last thing we want to do is fight traffic getting out even if it means stopping at 5 resorts before we get to ours.
3)Extra magic hours
4)Package delivery to the resort. Those damn bags rub the blue stuff onto me.
Now, does that mean that I think that there aren't 10,000 people out there that don't believe the way I do? That $29 per night for a Knight's Inn room is fine for them? Or a $100 time share spiel suite where you listen to them talk for 2 hours to get a room is great? Sure there are.
It is all a matter of perspective and experience. Someone that lives in a place with a low cost of living will look at WDW and freak out over the prices. I've posted several times on this. Having traveled extensively, $200 a night for a hotel room is not uncommon. My boss wouldn't bat an eye if I turned that in on an expense report. Going to some of the places we have plants he would ask me why I wasn't staying in the approved hotel at $250 per night.
I live in Detroit. Likely the prices aren't the same where you are so my experience and definition of "value" is absolutely different from other people. A combo meal at McDonalds here is $6.50. More if you something other than a hamburger. Chicken sandwich is $7.50, salad is $7-8 dollars. So to go to Disney and pay $12 for a QS meal that is twice as big as a McDonald's meal is not outrageous at all.
I've been to Key West and New Orleans and paid more for table service meals than I ever have at WDW. This weird little restaurant in Key West that looks like someone's back yard with chickens running around in it...(I didn't order the chicken on the menu) was 15% more expensive than what we had at Cali Grill and was of comparable quality and quantity. Only with wild chickens instead of a view of the Night of Joy at MK.
If there wasn't demand, there would not be supply. You apparently run a multi-million dollar business. Is it or is it not good business sense to charge what you can to your customers to the limit of what they will pay while balancing out the curve? Typically the curve settles at just below the junction of the two so economically speaking Disney is not charging what it *could* and still make a similar amount of money. The problem with this is that it becomes personal to people. "Disney is pricing ME out of going". Because it affects them on an immediate level there is a higher level of connection or let down when the pricing isn't what they think it should be.
There is no substitute good for Disney and the complimentary goods (the hotels in the area) will keep pace with the primary good. Add to that the fact that Disney's marginal cost is almost negligible (what is one more unit/person on a bus or in a room or in line for a ride) but the same cannot be said for the substitute goods outside of Disney because of the lack of similar scale. But I'm sure I don't have to explain the economics to you.
There are plenty of us out there (as obvious by the fact that Disney is still in business) that will go without a discount because with both the financial side and the intangible goods we believe it is a good value (terrific in my case). But that doesn't mean we aren't smart.
Stacy
