Sue M
DIS Legend
- Joined
- May 27, 2009
- Messages
- 19,747
Disney clearly is trying to curb the discounting. And, it serves their purposes to tell their employees that there will be no further discounts this year. It creates a sense of urgency-- which is what marketers do.
Only Disney knows if it is deliberate "dis"-information. But, I look at the economic signs and it does not look good for Disney's "no discounts" strategy.
Airfares are up drastically, oil and gas are more expensive than they've been in the past two years, unemployment remains very high, people are still fearing for their jobs and inflation is kicking in big time with food and other necessities. There is an article in the NY Times today that says food manufacturers are afraid to raise prices, so they are cutting the size of products -- 16 ounce packages now only have 12 ounces of product and so forth.
Families are going to start feeling the pinch, if they haven't already. That does not spell rah rah times for Disney.
I predict we will see numerous discounts for the latter 1/2 of the year. I think the peak-of-summer discounts are probably over.
It seems to me Disney has decided they are willing to take some losses on empty rooms (and the related losses on park tickets, merchandise and food) in order to try to wean the public away from discounts.
If the economic numbers were better, I think they would have a chance. As things are, I don't think they do.
they seem to have left out any peak summer discounts, and it may back fire on them, cause people will look at past discounts and book, but if no discounts come out, may well cancel.
And I'm sure I'm not the only one, but I will only book a deluxe if I'm getting a decent discount. I think they will have a difficult sell booking Deluxe at their inflated prices with no discount. I see a lotta empty rooms.
I had free DDP at POR x 11 nights, booked in winter, then when the room discounts came out, I decided to split, and doing last 5 nights now at BC with the 35%. If no discounts came out for Deluxe, I wouldn't have a problem staying at POR. But free DDP is never cheaper for us at Deluxe.
They sure are doing discounts differently this year, it will be interesting to see what happens for sure.