Attendance up 12% this summer

[phamton]

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/orl-universal1407nov14,0,6383528.story
Universal Orlando brings in the summer crowds, boasts record Q3 sales, profit
By Scott Powers | Sentinel Staff Writer
11:49 AM EST, November 13, 2007

Universal Orlando enjoyed its biggest summer crowds in three years this summer, leading the theme park company to announce today that it had record sales and profit during its third fiscal quarter.

Universal's paid theme-park attendance, at Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure, topped a combined 3.1 million for the three months that ended Sept. 30, a 12 percent improvement over the summer of 2006 and the first summer increase since 2004.

The attendance boost was enough to overcome attendance declines at Universal Orlando's theme parks during the first two quarters of 2007. For the fiscal year now, the parks' combined gate is now up 2 percent over last year's nine-month pace.

In its third-quarter financial statement, filed this morning with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the resort's parent company, Universal City Development Partners, reported what it called its best historical quarter to date for both net income and revenue.

During the third quarter, the company's revenue increased 18 percent to $267 million, while profit rose 104 percent, to $57 million.

The company also owns the CityWalk nightlife district and three resort hotels at Universal Orlando.

Universal officials credited the strong summer to consumer interest stoked by the new Blue Man Group show and by the announced coming of The Simpsons and Harry Potter attractions, along with "a more aggressive overall marketing strategy."

"We've benefited from the perfect combination of a robust marketplace, great new guest experiences, outstanding marketing, enthusiasm for the kind of entertainment we offer and the promise of more to come," said Bill Davis, president and chief operating officer of Universal Orlando.

 

[ky07]

Thats great news

 

[mayesq]

I'm sure the 7 day ticket for $85 helped as well. I think more people were willing to buy tickets to USO because of that deal.

 

[AlexandNessa]

That is great news. But the analyst in me is curious: I can't help wonder what the market norm was: did they do better or worse than their competition?

 

[ChrisFL]

I'm sure the 7 day ticket for $85 helped as well. I think more people were willing to buy tickets to USO because of that deal.

im sure that had a lot to do with it as well

 

[nerdboyrockstar]

That's awesome news! Thanks for posting.

I hope their numbers keep increasing. That means more new attractions in the pipeline.

 

[AmandaSparks730]

And to think, me, my parents, and my BFF were part of that summer attendance! MOVE OVER DISNEY!
Seriously, this is AWESOME news to a new USO/IoA fan!

 

[inkkognito]

I know our premier passes boosted the heck out of my attendance and DH's. I've lost track of the number of times we visited this year, but it's a LOT.

 

[Metro West]

It's always great news to hear Universal doing well!

 

[goofy!]

We are certainly using our AP's to help out the attendance figures

We are here now (Thanksgiving week) and can definitely see the difference in attendance from last year's Thanksgiving week.

Last year we pretty much had the parks to ourselves until the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.

Yesterday (Sunday), we were walking counter clockwise, against traffic, crossed the bridge into Lost Continent and thought "where did all these people come from?" as the masses of people were streaming towards Suessland. It was shoulder to shoulder all the way across the walkways at approximately 4pm. Walkways were very crowded, to the point of having to dodge people. Funny thing was, the waits for the rides didn't seem to be too long. The area in front of DD was packed, yet the wait times for both coasters was showing only 5 minutes.

FOTL has been walk-on for everything. We have been riding everything back to back with absolutely no wait.

IOA was more crowded yesterday than Universal. But it seems that althought here are plenty of people here, they are not riding. Or maybe they are all in the standby lines. I didn't pay much attention to the wait times in the regular lines, except for DD.

My guess is that today, Monday, will be far less crowded than the weekend.

 

[nerdboyrockstar]

We are certainly using our AP's to help out the attendance figures

We are here now (Thanksgiving week) and can definitely see the difference in attendance from last year's Thanksgiving week.

Last year we pretty much had the parks to ourselves until the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.

Yesterday (Sunday), we were walking counter clockwise, against traffic, crossed the bridge into Lost Continent and thought "where did all these people come from?" as the masses of people were streaming towards Suessland. It was shoulder to shoulder all the way across the walkways at approximately 4pm. Walkways were very crowded, to the point of having to dodge people. Funny thing was, the waits for the rides didn't seem to be too long. The area in front of DD was packed, yet the wait times for both coasters was showing only 5 minutes.

FOTL has been walk-on for everything. We have been riding everything back to back with absolutely no wait.

IOA was more crowded yesterday than Universal. But it seems that althought here are plenty of people here, they are not riding. Or maybe they are all in the standby lines. I didn't pay much attention to the wait times in the regular lines, except for DD.

My guess is that today, Monday, will be far less crowded than the weekend.

Thanks for the update. Good to hear the parks are busy.

 

[Claymax]

That is great news. But the analyst in me is curious: I can't help wonder what the market norm was: did they do better or worse than their competition?

Quote below from article dated 11/10/07 about Walt Disney Co. on the Mickey News website. (Here's the link to the full article.)
http://www.mickeynews.com/PDA/DisplayNews.asp_Q_id_E_11107Profit

The company posted a 5 percent increase in sales and a 23 percent jump in net profit for its 2007 fiscal year, which ended Sept. 29, according to financial reports filed Thursday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The quarter was at least the eighth in a row in which Disney recorded year-over-year increases in revenue and profit.

Disney's Parks and Resorts, Consumer Products and Broadcast Networks divisions all posted higher sales for the quarter and identical, 7 percent sales increases for the fiscal year. They each also showed reported gains in operating profit.

Although they did not detail Disney World's attendance, Staggs said it set a record this fiscal year and more than offset a slight decline at Disneyland Resort in Southern California, giving the company an overall 5 percent increase in domestic admissions. Disney World's average hotel-occupancy rate rose 7 percentage points to 90 percent, while spending by the average guest grew 2 percent, in part because of an increase in ticket prices and room rates.

So hopefully what this means for both UO and WDW is that they can convince the bean counters to let them spend more money on new rides and updates.

 

[Universal-Excitement]

When your numbers have plummeted since 2004 they have no where else to go but up... Down 11%, Down 4% Down 3% its not like they are back to where they were in 2004... it is surprising though their summer attendance went up with nothing new added, and rides in fact closed down during the Summer... I myself am curious what caused that spike in attendance... it will likely hold steady until 2008... and rise to a new high at the end of 2009 with Harry Potter at IOA... I have to admit that Bill Davis is doing a good job with the parks as of late, he's doing what needs to be done to get people into the parks, I just hope he doesn't follow the same poor marketing that's plagued the park for so many years... Universal seems to think they can coast on name recognition and believe they are Disney's direct competition two things they simply can not do... and are foolish to think they can... the only competition the have with Disney is seeing who will raise their prices first... and while Disney's prices go up... more things get added to Disney... when Universal's goes up something is being taken out of the park with nothing new being added... You know in all honesty I use to think Disney was the corporate money grubbing theme park, taking whatever they could get out of you and hoping you left the park without a cent in your pocket... however that has become Universal... a lot more so then Disney EVER could have been... Universal has raised it's ticket prices 7 times in 3 years... up $12.75... what did Universal offer with that extra ticket cost? Mummy and a 7 year old attraction that just finally opened? I mean if you look at the last 3 years attendance is always down and yet profits are at RECORD HIGHS! When you fire your highest paid executives and a bulk of your highest paid actors and lay off your entire call center and close rides for long periods or just close rides and never replace them and increase the cost of EVERYTHING and offer less for more money of course people won't go and the ones who do end up paying that extra cost... everything from merchandise to parking has gone up dramatically in the last 3 years... shirts that use to be a staple benchmark of $19.95 are now $25.95 which is like $4 more then the average Disney Shirt... Parking went up $3 in 3 years and what do you get for that extra cost? Escalators and people movers which you'll always find at least 2 not working on any given day which make that mile walk to the parks just all the more fun... I could go on all day on my views of Universal's lapse in judgment in properly promoting a successful product but I think I made a point in my rant somewhere.

 

[ky07]

When your numbers have plummeted since 2004 they have no where else to go but up... Down 11%, Down 4% Down 3% its not like they are back to where they were in 2004... it is surprising though their summer attendance went up with nothing new added, and rides in fact closed down during the Summer... I myself am curious what caused that spike in attendance... it will likely hold steady until 2008... and rise to a new high at the end of 2009 with Harry Potter at IOA... I have to admit that Bill Davis is doing a good job with the parks as of late, he's doing what needs to be done to get people into the parks, I just hope he doesn't follow the same poor marketing that's plagued the park for so many years... Universal seems to think they can coast on name recognition and believe they are Disney's direct competition two things they simply can not do... and are foolish to think they can... the only competition the have with Disney is seeing who will raise their prices first... and while Disney's prices go up... more things get added to Disney... when Universal's goes up something is being taken out of the park with nothing new being added... You know in all honesty I use to think Disney was the corporate money grubbing theme park, taking whatever they could get out of you and hoping you left the park without a cent in your pocket... however that has become Universal... a lot more so then Disney EVER could have been... Universal has raised it's ticket prices 7 times in 3 years... up $12.75... what did Universal offer with that extra ticket cost? Mummy and a 7 year old attraction that just finally opened? I mean if you look at the last 3 years attendance is always down and yet profits are at RECORD HIGHS! When you fire your highest paid executives and a bulk of your highest paid actors and lay off your entire call center and close rides for long periods or just close rides and never replace them and increase the cost of EVERYTHING and offer less for more money of course people won't go and the ones who do end up paying that extra cost... everything from merchandise to parking has gone up dramatically in the last 3 years... shirts that use to be a staple benchmark of $19.95 are now $25.95 which is like $4 more then the average Disney Shirt... Parking went up $3 in 3 years and what do you get for that extra cost? Escalators and people movers which you'll always find at least 2 not working on any given day which make that mile walk to the parks just all the more fun... I could go on all day on my views of Universal's lapse in judgment in properly promoting a successful product but I think I made a point in my rant somewhere.

don't want to make you mad but you sound a little bitter at universal.
Its just a sign of the times when prices go up and to be honest yes ticket prices are high but to be fair universal is much lower than disney and I can't see myself paying those huge prices that disney charges expecially for the park hoppers and let me say as far as theme parks go the closest one to me is paramont kings island in ohio and you want to talk about high prices try going there cause its high and has the most rude workers and people there and we have vowed never to go there agian and so we only get to go to universal once a year and the only thing that gets us on prices is the airline tickets.

 

[Universal-Excitement]

Universal is in no way cheaper then Disney... Parking is more, Ticket Prices are the same... EVEN Disney's expensive AP is cheaper then Universal's... Universal's is $190 vs $375 which I spent on my AP at Disney just 2 months ago... if you divide those prices by the amount of parks you'll see Universal is $95 per park per year, compared to $94 at Disney per park per year.... food is cheaper at Disney then at Universal...

Prices go up at Universal because prices go up at Disney... Universal themselves have stated that much in the press just as recently as this year. When Disney raised their price Tom Schroder said that the new prices are "about remaining competitive in the marketplace." "We've adjusted our basic pricing so that it stays in line with the marketplace" If Disney doesn't raise their price then Universal wouldn't raise theirs... Disney raises their prices because they add more to their parks and offer a lot more entertainment value for that cost... Universal raises their prices, take things out and offer less for more money... it's not a BITTER rant it's a fact... that is why Universal's attendance has been in a free fall for the last 3 years... they got rid of an Annual Event because they were too cheap to pay the cast to perform in it... then turned around and kept a Grinch character around just so they could promote the image of the Grinch to intentionally mislead the general public into thinking Grinchmas was still going on... because they did NOT inform the public about the removal of the event... and the reason it is back this year is because of how pissed off everyone was last year who went for the event and did not get to see it... but instead got to see the Grinch in front of a 3M Reflective clothe which prevented any pictures you got with him from coming out... in the hopes you'll PAY Kodak for their picture... THAT IS UNIVERSAL!

 

[Ileana]

I'd like to thank our British friends for visiting the US (and Universal Studios) while their Pound is so incredibly strong against our weak dollar.

 

[damo]

Universal is in no way cheaper then Disney... Parking is more, Ticket Prices are the same... EVEN Disney's expensive AP is cheaper then Universal's... Universal's is $190 vs $375 which I spent on my AP at Disney just 2 months ago... if you divide those prices by the amount of parks you'll see Universal is $95 per park per year, compared to $94 at Disney per park per year.... food is cheaper at Disney then at Universal...

I'd go along with this if each park was filled with rides I like. However, each park only has a few rides that I think are reridable, the rest are for small children, and in total that gives me about the same as the two Universal parks. I can walk to all of those rides at Universal but must waste a lot of time getting to those rides at Disney. That, to me, makes Disney twice as expensive. It also is a major reason that I prefer Disneyland.

 

[RVGal]

Well, if we're going to divide things up and get all picky about prices...

If you divide the number of days that an AP is valid at WDW vs. the number of days that an AP is valid at UO... oh, that's right, the money grubbing Universal let's you use it all year long and Disney blacks out peak days and weeks... but so what?

I visited Universal for the first time in 5 years this past summer. Why? Was it the brilliant marketing strategy? Nope. Was it the promise of new rides? Nope. It was because I had a baby 6 years ago and waited until I thought he would enjoy it.

To say that the money grubbers at Disney have given us more new stuff leaves me baffled. They keep redesigning the same old things, with very few exceptions, and the new designs are all tied into some Disney movie-merchandising franchise. The Living Seas becomes The Seas with Nemo and Friends (and, hey, kids, on your way out, be sure to buy all the Nemo crap that was starting to go stale after you forgot about the movie!). Alien Encounter becomes the Stitch thing. I'm waiting for the Indy Speedway to be redesigned with a Cars theme.

Again, but so what?

All the theme parks in Orlando have existed with profit in mind. Always. No matter what heartstrings you tie to them, they are first and foremost about profit. To try and decide who is more greedy than the other is a ridiculous waste of time. They ALL want our money... however much we are willing to throw at them.

Those of us that love the look and feel of Disney World will keep going back until they outprice us or we lose interest. Those of us that love the look and feel of Universal will keep going back until they outprice us or we lose interest. Just because some have reached that point already with one, the other, or both, doesn't make any of us more right or wrong.

And now, back to the regularly scheduled celebration of Universal's increase in attendance...

 

[macraven]

thanks for the heads up phamton. it's exciting the numbers are on the rise.


oh, U-E, i noticed your tag.
it's self explanatory.

 

[Metro West]

Universal is in no way cheaper then Disney... Parking is more, Ticket Prices are the same... EVEN Disney's expensive AP is cheaper then Universal's... Universal's is $190 vs $375 which I spent on my AP at Disney just 2 months ago... if you divide those prices by the amount of parks you'll see Universal is $95 per park per year, compared to $94 at Disney per park per year.... food is cheaper at Disney then at Universal...

Prices go up at Universal because prices go up at Disney... Universal themselves have stated that much in the press just as recently as this year. When Disney raised their price Tom Schroder said that the new prices are "about remaining competitive in the marketplace." "We've adjusted our basic pricing so that it stays in line with the marketplace" If Disney doesn't raise their price then Universal wouldn't raise theirs... Disney raises their prices because they add more to their parks and offer a lot more entertainment value for that cost... Universal raises their prices, take things out and offer less for more money... it's not a BITTER rant it's a fact... that is why Universal's attendance has been in a free fall for the last 3 years... they got rid of an Annual Event because they were too cheap to pay the cast to perform in it... then turned around and kept a Grinch character around just so they could promote the image of the Grinch to intentionally mislead the general public into thinking Grinchmas was still going on... because they did NOT inform the public about the removal of the event... and the reason it is back this year is because of how pissed off everyone was last year who went for the event and did not get to see it... but instead got to see the Grinch in front of a 3M Reflective clothe which prevented any pictures you got with him from coming out... in the hopes you'll PAY Kodak for their picture... THAT IS UNIVERSAL!

If you think Disney is going to give you ANY park discounts, you're kidding yourself. What about the $$$ Disney pays their top execs and still pays their cast members less than $9.00/hr? Universal takes MUCH better care of their AP holders than Disney EVER will. Why doesn't Disney offer the flexpay option for those who want to go to Disney and can't afford to pay the for the AP all at one time?

I remember seeing something on the Rumors board about Disney doing away with the free picture at MNSSHP last year and that didn't go over well. Do you think Disney will reinstate that? Nope!

If you live in FL, you should know as soon as one of the parks raises their prices the others will follow suit. Nothing new there.

What annual events...other than Grinchmas last year did Universal do away with? Not Mardi Gras....not HHN....what am I missing?

I do agree with you about the parking at both Disney and Universal. It's strictly money in their pockets. There's nothing like spending a day at Disney in the summer and get to a steaming hot car in the parking lot unlike the garages at Universal. Disney magic at it's best.

The food and merchandise at Universal is no more expensive than at Disney with the park discounts with the AP. Disney isn't going to give you ANY discounts at the gate or the parks. Again...Disney magic oozing all over the place.

Did I miss anything?