Disney Closing Animal Kingdom?

[d-r]

OK, I buy that.

DR

 

[DC7800]

Originally posted by DisneyKidds
As "attendance-depressed" (if we can legitimately call it that) as the AK may be, it is still the 5th most attended theme park by the AB analysis. Viewed in that perspective it is hard to call the park a failure.

Actually, I agree, at least to an extent. With six Disney parks in the U.S., one of them has to be number five - and a certain California park has to come in even lower on the list. However, the rankings seem less important than the actual attendance, which has declined steadily (along with the rest of WDW) over the past few years. With so few exciting new attractions to be found in the other three parks, one might have expected the newest park on property to do better. But, it hasn't. Consider also that declining attendance over at Epcot is also widely described as a real problem, yet it lands at number three in the rankings. Animal Kingdom is far from the failure that DCA has become, but it has dramatically failed to live up to expectations, and (worse still) the park falls very far short of reaching it's true potential.

My real concerns center more around Animal Kingdom's future. A single new E-ticket attraction (still a couple years away) is just not going to solve the park's underlying problems (a percieved lack of sufficient major attractions to warrant a day's visit). Whatever anyone's personal opinion of the place, much more than E:E is going to be required before the masses will think of AK as worthy of a (full) day's vacation. Simply put, AK needs more to do (it also needs the right mix of attractions, but that's another thread). Since - as of this point - little or nothing besides E:E appears to be coming to AK anytime soon, I can't help but wonder exactly where the additional crowds are going to come from to even keep AK ahead of the IOA competition up the street, let alone to actually grow the attendance. Indeed, the quantity of coming attractions to all WDW parks isn't exactly overwhelming. Hence, my expectation that other parks would have to decline (relative to AK) in order for AK to gain ground. True, AK could pass the other parks simply by growing faster than an also expanding MK, Epcot, and Studios - I just don't see how under current circumstances (management).

 

[d-r]

I don't know if they will and I'm not saying they are, but if it was me I wouldn't tell you if I was planning to build something else, I would want some people to come see EE, I wouldn't want them to say I'll just wait a couple of years and then I can this EE and the new thing they are going to make.

 

[crusader]

There is absolutely no doubt that E:E is going to drive the attendance figures up for this park. Once they have the guests though, they will need to deal with several other issues -
such as:

The poor design which has the propensity to bottleneck; The park operating hours which may need to be extended; and the lack of comfortable eating establishments.

From what I've heard, one of the good things about AK is that it has a quieting effect on the guest due to its' smaller crowds. I'm not sure how they will prevent it from generating a busy feel like the Magic Kingdom once guests start piling in to experience the new mountain coaster.

 

[Peter Pirate]

As to the crowds...The generally accepted rumor is tha Asia will be opened to the other side, through Dinoland, to allow another complete circle (no dead end). I think it will still be a crowded feel though...

 

[blackshirt]

Originally posted by DC7800
Consider also that declining attendance over at Epcot is also widely described as a real problem, yet it lands at number three in the rankings. Animal Kingdom is far from the failure that DCA has become, but it has dramatically failed to live up to expectations, and (worse still) the park falls very far short of reaching it's true potential.

Epcots attendance is a real problem. I enjoy epcot immensely but my daughter(11) only really enjoys- eh - Test Track- one that I consider mediocre. Epcots attendance numbers are padded by the fact that large numbers of locals come nightly to eat dinner and watch the night time show. Take away the show and Disney might as well close the park. Why are the nighttime shows at MK the only ones to be cut? Because customers will show up at MK regardless of the nighttime entertainment.
Animal Kingdom is a complete and total failure from Disney's perspective. It has merely cannibalized the other parks attendance. I agree that AK has by far the most potential of any park. But, even if they started today to massively renovate it, it would take how long to realize? 3 years? And, Disney management has many better things to do. Manage ABC and let the parks fall as they may. Anyway, who really believes that current management will be around in 3 years?

 

[Laurajean1014]

Do you think the past few years attendance drop is because of: lack of attractions? Couldn't it be because of the higher rate of unemployment? The downfall of corporate america and wall street?

I think Disney is a strong American company, however, I would not credit them with this responsibility that lightly.

Have you surfed the internet or stores lately? Everything in the stores is either on sale or being sold at very low prices. The economy is bad and people do not spend extra money at Disney, when they have no extra money to spend!!!!!

Disney is feeling the crunch big time. And so are the parks, that's why they are moving up all these projects; to get people interested in coming to the parks.

As Wayne Gretzsky once said "It's not where to puck is, but rather where it's going."

 

[jlambrig]

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by blackshirt
Animal Kingdom is a complete and total failure from Disney's perspective. It has merely cannibalized the other parks attendance.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yes it has, and this happens anytime you open another park wihin a larger complex. It is happened with USF and IOA too. I don't believe it is the only cause.

Uisng Hopemax's attendance figures from another thread, I noticed that while attendance has declined since 1997 (the peak year), attendance is slightly higher than 1992-94. So AK hasn't truly cannabalized the other parks. It actually adds to the overall attendance to the order that Epcot and DS do.

I have been accused by some of being firmly entrenched in car 1. I actually tend to agree more with what posters like AV and the Baron say but AK is far from a "complete and total failure". It could be better but as far as I am concerned, so can every park within WDW, DL, USF, USH, CP, etc etc. I do try and refrain from the hyperbole occasionally displayed here.

 

[blackshirt]

Originally posted by Laurajean1014

Have you surfed the internet or stores lately? Everything in the stores is either on sale or being sold at very low prices. The economy is bad and people do not spend extra money at Disney, when they have no extra money to spend!!!!!

While I agree that the poor economy has had some effect on attendance at WDW, other amusement parks have actually increased their numbers recently. The majority of the people being effected today are not WDW's target audience. WDW is correctly called a resort. Even staying offsite, it is probably safe to assume that the average customer is comfortably middle class.

 

[Laurajean1014]

I agree! WDW attendees are working class/middle class income. Thankfully, most of these people have and kept their prospective jobs/careers, when higher income have lost their jobs and low income could probably not afford a WDW trip each year or otherwise.

 

[d-r]

"other amusement parks have actually increased their numbers recently."

Since the drop in attendance at the cedar fair parks was due to the weather, lets revisit those numbers from last year - it is about the best thing we have to work with.

Attendance at the 50 most-visited theme parks in North America in 2002 was down by 3.2 million visits to 170 million. So overall, attendance at all parks was down by 1.9% in 2002 compared to 2001.

Last year, overall at wdw, attendance was down 6%; this ranged as high as 8.3% at Epcot. So some percent of the variance is accounted for by individual differences in the parks - there were more people deciding not to visit epcot than to visit magic kingdom, at least for some portion of the visit.

Overall, international visits at Walt Disney World were down by about 20 percent in 2002. This was reported as high as 35% in the first quarter, then recovered somewhat. International traffic at Orlando International Airport was down almost 25 percent for the year in 2002. Now this accounts for a lot of the drop of wdw attendance. Remember, wdw has a lot more international visiters than does a local six flag park. So surely this drop in international visiters accounts for a large portion of the variance - in fact, it seems to me that local attendence may actually be up, due to special offers, etc. I don't have those data. It occurs to me, though, that local visiters might be more likely to spend a day at MK than a day at epcot, unlike an international visiter who might stay a week or two and visit them all.

The Magic Kingdom dropped about 5 percent in attendence - you can see this is quite a bit less than Epcot. Despite that drop, the Magic Kingdom in Florida was the best-attended park in the world in 2002 with 14 million visitors, displacing Tokyo Disneyland, the perennial winner. Yes, the opening of Tokyo Disneysea drew down the attendance at Tokyo Disneyland.

After the WDW Magic Kingdom, the top-five best-attended parks in North America in 2002 were Disneyland in Anaheim, Calif., with 12.7 million visitors, up 3 percent; Epcot with 8.2 million visitors; Disney-MGM with 8 million visitors; and Disney's Animal Kingdom with 7.3 million visitors.

So Disneyland actually went up. That didn't help California Adventure, though, so again, clearly some of the variance is due to individual differences between the parks. California Adventure dropped from 5.0 million in 2001 to 4.7 million in 2002. California Adventure is suffering. That 2001 number is probably inflated at the first of the year by new visiters seeing something new, but it is deflated the last part by 9/11.

Now, about those other parks seeing increased attendence. The thinking is that people are more willing to take a short drive to a regional park, rather than flying to a destination (for example, visits to Hawaii have been down the past two years, especially among international visiters).

Of those 50 top parks in America, 29 of them showed an attendance drop in 2002. 15 parks showed increases. So it isn't exactly overwhelming.

Schlitterbahn, a water park in Texas, is often regarded as the nation's top water park. It had an estimated attendance of 810,000 guests in 2002, a 14 percent decline from the prior year. Amusement Business said it was the first time in 23 seasons that Schlitterbahn posted a decline. (Just fwiw, 2002 Blizzard Beach = 1.7 million, Typhon Lagoon = 1.5 million, wet n wild = 1.2 million).

In 2002, Six Flags total attendance dropped from 51.2 million the previous year. By the way, 6 flags hasn't shown a profit since 1998. I think that some of the six flags parks showed increases, I know that the Texas parks and the Great Adventure park in New Jersey showed decreases.

Universal Studios Fl. attendence is reported as 8.1 million in 2000, 7.3 in 2001, and 6.9 in 2002. And it isn't just cannibalization of islands of adventure bringing down USF. In 2000, and I think this was a partial year, correct me, Islands of Adventure attendence was 6.0 million. This dropped to 5.5 million in 2001, then actually rose to 6.1 million in 2002. So Islands of Adventure was one of the 15 U.S. parks that showed increase, in fact it even increased over its 2000 numbers! Amazing success, right? Again, I think 2000 was a partial year for them. At the least, it was a new place then with little awareness. Look at the total attendence at Universal Studios Resort Florida - 2000 = 14.1 million, 2001 = 12.8 million, and 2002 = 13 million. So with all those $99 annual passes, and ticket specials in coke cans and publex, the attendance at USF went up 200,000 over the year. And this was with a second park that was maturing in terms of public knowledge.

In California, Univeral Studios went from 5.2 million in 2000, down to 4.7 million in 2001, and back to 5.2 million in 2002. Much like Disneyland, I expect that Universal Studios Hollywood benefits from much local traffic. So, along with Disneyland, USH was one of the 15 parks to increase attendance. So now we have identified 3 of them. Both of the Universal Studios locations should be poised to show a proportionally higher attendance this year with the addition of new attractions.

Seaworld in Orlando dropped from 5.2 million in 2000, to 5.1 million in 2001, to 5.0 million in 2002. Not much of a drop, but a steady decline. Seaworld also benefits as a largely local park. Sea World in San Diego saw a slight increase, now we have four. Sea World in Texas saw a decrease.

In Tampa, Bush Gardens dropped from 5.0 million in 2000, to 4.6 in 2001, to 4.5 million in 2002. Again, a park that draws a lot of locals. I do not believe that anyone is going to argue that the drop is due to Animal Kingdom, since it opened in 1998.

Knotts Berry Farm attendance was flat. Attendance there went from 3.5 million in 2000 to 3.6 million in 2001, then maintained at 3.6 million in 2002.

It looks to me like Las Vegas is one of the places that is doing well. The Adventuredome at Circus Circus (I've never been to Las Vegas, so I don't really even know what that is) went from 3.0 million in 2000, to 3.4 million in 2001, to 4.5 million in 2002. Again, I don't know anything about this place - is it new or did they add something new or something to account for that growth? Or is there that much increased traffic to Las Vegas?

This article says that people are choosing to drive to Las Vegas

http://www.dailybulletin.com/Stories/0,1413,203~21482~1493360,00.html

Here is another interesting article about Las Vegas - it says that 35% of the respondents in a survey (looks like a convenience sample) said they would vacation closer to home in 2003, and 20% would take vacation at home.

This article says that the casinos are not expected to outperform 2002, due to the economy and reduced tourism due to SARS

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/gaming/2003/jun/19/515239250.html

Anyway, I am not sure about Las Vegas, but the rest of the data seems to me to suggest that the biggest drop is due to international travel. Beyond that, there are disproportionate drops in attendance at the wdw parks that are clearly due to individual differences in the parks - more people attended the Magic Kingdom than Epcot, for example. But that isn't very surprisng to me, really, is it to anyone else? It seems that the 2000 attendance at Epcot would have been artificially high with the millinium stuff.

Here's another way of looking at it. Magic Kingdom wdw dropped 3% from 2000-2001, and 5% from 2001-2002.
Epcot dropped 15% from 2000-2001, almost 8% (7.7) from 2001-2002.
Studios dropped 9% from 2000-2001, 4.7% from 2001-2002.
Animal Kingdom dropped 6% from 2000-2001, 6% from 2001-2002.
Universal Studios Florida dropped 10% from 2000-2001, 5.5% from 2001-2002.
Islands of Adventure dropped ~8% from 2000-2001, and ROSE ~10% from 2001-2002.

Anyway, just 2 cents.

 

[Planogirl]

Interesting numbers d-r. I appreciate you writing all of that.

In reference to Schlitterbahn, something else may have affected its attendance. The Texas hill country was badly flooded last year which forced Schlitterbahn to shut down and then only reopen in phases. I'm not sure how long this took but I know that they lost July 4. Also, the park has a very short season, running only from the end of April until mid September with part of that being weekends only so a closure will definitely have a strong affect on attendance.

I guess that weather could affect attendance after all.

 

[Laurajean1014]

Dr,

Those stats are quite impressive. I just know that when I go to WDW, which is 20 days of the year, it is always crowded!

I still can't get into Cinderella's Round Table for Breakfast, and can't get a ressie for the Pirate Cruise!

People are still flocking to the greatest show/place on earth!

 

[mitros]

Amen to that! And we are there 50 days + in a year.