Disney's MyMagic Failure

[Laketravis]

Interesting article, no matter if you are a hater or a lover:

MyMagic Failure


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[sonofanarchy]

Read that earlier. Good article. And pretty much spot-on as far as I can tell.

Sad, but true. While Universal continues to whip out amazing attraction after amazing attraction, Disney just whips out new technology that does nothing to improve upon the old technology.

 

[morethananyonex]

Saw this article earlier. I think although much of it is opinion based, it really captures why so many of us are so against the direction Disney has chosen to take here. I think this sums it up perfectly....

Disney has long adhered to the John Lasseter philosophy that quality is the best business plan. If guest satisfaction is high, people are more inclined to spend money. With MyMagic+ and Fastpass+, Disney is taking a different approach. The motivation behind the original Fastpass system was guest satisfaction. The motivation behind Fastpass+ is strictly monetary.

Now more than ever, many of us feel very aware that we are nothing more than dollar signs to Disney. Sure, most people were always aware Disney was in the business of making money, but they always seemed to strive to create a top of the line experience, which in turn made them money. Now it feels as if they're striving to make money first and foremost, even if the experience suffers.

I guess it feels as though Disney is trying to squeeze every penny out of guests, rather than guests naturally spending more because of the quality of the experience, KWIM?

 

[erin1715]

Great article and I agree it's spot on, and made me sad. The only hope is that Disney gets so much bad press from this that they somehow swallow their pride and try to make it right.

But I think getting Iger out would be a large improvement.

 

[MickeyMinnieMom]

Another opinion piece. OK. "The motivation behind Fastpass+ is strictly monetary." As though this precludes the possibility that the CAUSE of the increased revenue the execs might be expecting MIGHT be INCREASING GUEST SATISFACTION for MORE GUESTS caused by MDE. Nope. Not possible. Change in strategy that NOW focuses ONLY on money.


And I can't personally take an article seriously that contains this quote about the period 2008-2012 -- i.e. following the MASSIVE FINANCIAL CRISIS:

While attendance remained stable, it was a far cry from the growth seen during 2005-2007.

"Apart from that financial crisis, Mrs. Lincoln..."

Yup. Let's draw some occlusions about Disney strategy based solely upon that. Geez.

JMHO.


Clearly, I should skip these articles and just look our for Morningstar analyses.

 

[wallrock]

Interesting article, however there's a lot of speculation on what the conversations are in the board room and not necessarily facts.

It would make sense that Disney is more concerned with how much guests spend per day as opposed to increased guest traffic. Bottom line is that WDW, or any other resort, is bound by four walls, and you can only fit so many inside. The next logical step is to work on having those guests within the four walls to spend more. That or build another park, and I don't think that's likely for the foreseeable future.

I personally think that the reasoning behind 'locking in' guests to reservations doesn't hold water. As long as making fastpass reservations doesn't cost money, or your not financially penalized for missing your fastpass reservation, then some guests may not have a second thought on reserving a place in line at Disney and not using it. In fact, they may do that as a failsafe of sorts while their plan is to include a visit to another place like Universal. If for some reason they can't make it to Universal on a given day, then not to worry - I've got faspasses stashed away for the Magic Kingdom (maybe I'm missing something here, but I haven't found anything that tells me that making a fastpass reservation somehow financially obligates me to visiting the park that day). Granted this does imply that you've already purchased tickets to WDW, so you've already made a financial investment, but there's nothing to stop one from spreading out, say, a three day ticket across a week while they hop back and forth between the two complexes. I'm seeing more and more people planning a trip to 'central Florida' instead of 'Disney' to take advantage of all the attractions.

Being an IT person, I'll throw out there that the core of the discussion around fast passes and MyMagic+ isn't the only thing Disney has invested in. Yes they've spent close to two billion, but I suspect that a large portion of the investment is associated with other infrastructure upgrades and/or application development. Data mining and crowd management at the level Disney is thinking about takes a technology infrastructure that doesn't come cheap. I've seen complex installations get delayed and plagued by problems, but eventually they work themselves out. I see something similar happening here.

Bottom line is that I'm defending the practice, but I don't think that the expenditure is being done solely to pillage every guest. Disney knows full and well that they have to keep people coming back if they want the cash to flow. They'll keep doing the things that the guests want to see, just not at the rate that a lot of us would like.

 

[ChipnDale79]

Great article and I agree it's spot on, and made me sad. The only hope is that Disney gets so much bad press from this that they somehow swallow their pride and try to make it right.

But I think getting Iger out would be a large improvement.

I think Iger has done a fantastic job for the Studios, however for WDW, he's been horrible.

Since he has taken the helm, we've seen cut back, cut back, cut back, and price increase, price increase, price increase. At some point there will be a breaking point.......

 

[ParrotBill]

Pillage every guest, no... but keep them onsite and increase their spending per hour... yes. And bands will let them mine spend per hour not just per day.

Spending more than $1.5B on a system with no real new guest benefit is really questionable. Maybe the stockholders like it, for now, for the empty promise... but I see the lack of investment and renewal and a declining guest experience.

Sorry, but greeting me my name at the door and checking me in with a spiffy iPad instead of at the desk, and opening my door with a spiffy band isn't enough to keep me coming twice a year, or even once a year. If crowd patterns get worse in August (compared to last August same time) then I will consider FP+ a failure and with it MyMagic. And this nonsense about not sending a MagicBand to an AP purchaser until it has been activated is nonsense! Guest experience went in the tank when my wife and I have two sets of MagicBands but our 14 year old daughter does not. Her AP was on a different scheduled than ours because of a school trip, and so for our visit in April we will all be using RFID Cards. Yet, offsite visitors can start buying them today.

After a year, they need to get it right.

 

[wallrock]

Pillage every guest, no... but keep them onsite and increase their spending per hour... yes. And bands will let them mine spend per hour not just per day.

Again I'm not seeing how this keeps guests onsite. And as far as spending, that's up to the individual or group to manage.

Spending more than $1.5B on a system with no real new guest benefit is really questionable. Maybe the stockholders like it, for now, for the empty promise... but I see the lack of investment and renewal and a declining guest experience.

That's how much has been spent as of now and not what the original estimated cost was. Also keep in mind that not every penny spent is directly for the guest's benefit or something they can see. There are items that are put in place to help the employee better provide assistance to their customer. Again I've seen other companies spend comparable percentages of their income on upgrades where customers don't see the immediate benefit. I've personally been a part of such projects. Many complained and we suffered through the phone calls, the late hours and the customer complaints only to come out on the other side with a better system that provided a good return on the investment.

Again I'm not defending what Disney is doing now, I just don't think that every aspect of it is malignant.

 

[xie]

"Fastpass+ is technologically superior to the original Fastpass. However, from a Fastpass distribution standpoint, Fastpass+ reverses any evolutionary gains over the last 15 years of Fastpass by adding it back to attractions that since had it removed, as well as adding it to attractions that never necessitated Fastpass usage. The motivation behind this is to get more guests to be able to make more reservations per day. In doing so, they will have “locked in” that guest and prevented them from traveling elsewhere in Central Florida. Disney has assigned value to Fastpass reservations like Spaceship Earth that are wholly unnecessary with the intent of deceiving guests into staying on property."

Nailed it.

"Led by Iger and now CFO Jay Rasulo, the company has sacrificed guest satisfaction in favor of getting the most money out of a guest on their current trip. This shortsightedness sacrifices future profits for current cash flow. In Disney’s eyes there will always be a new crop of guests to replace those they lose. Repeat visitors aren’t as profitable as the first timer. Every corporate decision is made with the next quarter’s balance sheet in mind while five, ten and twenty year plans are seemingly non-existent."

And this is why we cancelled our two upcoming on-property stays. We got the message loud and clear that they didn't care if we came back.

 

[Andtototoo]

I think an unintended consequence of the FP+ system is that while it supposedly "locks" guests into visiting on the day they said they would, the increased time guests spending waiting on lines will translate into lower added purchases per guests per day.

If I'm spending my time waiting 90+ minutes to ride Haunted Mansion when a year ago I was whizzing through on my FP, that's 90 fewer minutes I have to shop for pins or buy food or visit a character to get my picture taken by a PHotopass photographer.

Given that the real money comes from the post-ticket purchases of food and products, decreasing available time to make those purchases is not a good business model.

 

[JanaDee]

His article is spot on in the direction Disney is headed.

 

[SolitaryPhoenix]

I think an unintended consequence of the FP+ system is that while it supposedly "locks" guests into visiting on the day they said they would, the increased time guests spending waiting on lines will translate into lower added purchases per guests per day.

If I'm spending my time waiting 90+ minutes to ride Haunted Mansion when a year ago I was whizzing through on my FP, that's 90 fewer minutes I have to shop for pins or buy food or visit a character to get my picture taken by a PHotopass photographer.

Given that the real money comes from the post-ticket purchases of food and products, decreasing available time to make those purchases is not a good business model.

This would seem to make sense.

 

[Mad Hattered]

Thanks for the heads up, Lake!

I thought the article was spot on. And that is just sad.

 

[xie]

I think an unintended consequence of the FP+ system is that while it supposedly "locks" guests into visiting on the day they said they would, the increased time guests spending waiting on lines will translate into lower added purchases per guests per day.

If I'm spending my time waiting 90+ minutes to ride Haunted Mansion when a year ago I was whizzing through on my FP, that's 90 fewer minutes I have to shop for pins or buy food or visit a character to get my picture taken by a PHotopass photographer.

Given that the real money comes from the post-ticket purchases of food and products, decreasing available time to make those purchases is not a good business model.

It's possible that they don't care you are spending more time in lines. It's possible that they figure if they keep you in lines for more time, you'll be coerced into eating counter service rather than returning to your DVC unit or condo or going offsite for cheaper food.

It's also entirely possible that they want to simply extend the number of days you must be onsite - say, take MK from a one-day park to a two-day park without adding many attractions. The only way they can do that is to make it much harder for people to ride the majority of the rides in one day. And that, I think, they have succeeded at, per all the reports from people who have visited this winter (and my own experiences in January).

If they can keep you in MK for two days instead of one, it's one less day you'll go to Universal or elsewhere offsite. That's a portion of a park ticket price plus two or three more meals/snacks they'll get out of you, at minimum (assuming most guests aren't hauling in PBJs or returning to a condo to cook 3 meals a day).

First and foremost, they do not want you to leave WDW property at any time during your 5-7 days onsite. That means making it take as long as is tolerably possible to experience the offered content. If you can rush through it, you're more likely to leave.

Right now, they are exploring the limits of people's tolerance for waiting and being gated through the content. If boiling the frog works and people continue to tolerate these waits and attendance doesn't drop, don't look for the waits to get any better anytime soon. They do not want you to leave.

 

[DavidNYC]

Lost me what they asserted the original FP was for satisfaction and FP+ was monetary. FP was always monetary. They never denied they wanted guests out of lines to spend money in shops, on food, etc. lot of speculation and opinion being presented as fact.

 

[MaryKatesMom]

I guess it will come down to whatever data they mine from the MB's. However, I don't think it will show up for quite a while.

I'm still taking my Easter Trip this year but what about next year?

Maybe WDW realizes that one time guests are enough and the repeat guests aren't worth the extra effort and money to keep them coming back but why build so much DVC?

 

[jenrose66]

Interesting article, no matter if you are a hater or a lover:

MyMagic Failure


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Thanks, that was an interesting read

 

[MickeyMinnieMom]

...lot of speculation and opinion being presented as fact.

Exactly. Nothing more than an opinion piece, but it bugs me when it's presented as though it's more than that.

 

[JanaDee]

Right now, they are exploring the limits of people's tolerance for waiting and being gated through the content. If boiling the frog works and people continue to tolerate these waits and attendance doesn't drop, don't look for the waits to get any better anytime soon. They do not want you to leave.

Yup, and many of us have already willingly jumped out of the pot.