Is attendance really growing?

[OKW Lover]

I wonder if they do that for ease of accounting yet still just review records to know the rest of the story. I could see only counting first swipe at a park.
But how hard would it be to look at first time a ticket was swiped in each park.

But then, from an admissions POV, even though there are 4 gates, perhaps they just count the unique entries to WDW at large so they cannot be accused of double dipping on attendance. So they avoid counting a guest twice even if that guest was visiting two separate parks that they treat as individual parks.

Very logical and probably the right thing to do. Keep in mind though that the quoted attendance figures are not from Disney, who doesn't release that kind of info. I have no doubt that Disney does just what you suggest for their own internal purposes.

 

[Josh Hendy]

TEA does the counting.

Or do they? I tried to look up their methodology ... I admit I didn't look very hard ... actually only about 5 seconds, but I found this being quoted on the webs:

"AECOM obtains the figures used to create the TEA/AECOM Theme Index and Museum Index through a variety of sources, including statistics furnished directly by the operators, historical numbers, financial reports, the investment banking community and local tourism organizations, among others."

Let me try to break that down ...

• statistics furnished directly by the operators
• historical numbers [i.e. old statistics furnished by the operators]
• financial reports [i.e. statistics furnished by the operators]
• the investment banking community [who give them statistics furnished by the operators]
• local tourist organizations [who give them statistics furnished by the operators]

It's not completely bogus. The reason for checking the same statistics from multiple sources is because if someone is telling fibs, they will seldom be able to keep their story consistent when they tell it several times to different people.

In other words, AECOM apparently counts nothing, but depends on the honesty of the theme park operators, with some cross-checking for consistency. They might be able to cross-check against hotel and airline bookings, but really ... how do they know how many days were spent at IOA and how many at the beach? And note that the cross-checked information is generally company-wide (financial reports and banking) or city-wide (tourist organizations). There are apparently no consistency checks available to confirm the supposed numbers of DHS versus AK versus USF.

In other words, there's no precision in anything but turnstile clicks, and TEA aren't privy to those.

From prior experience, I can tell you that a lot of supposed "analysis" of industry and finance is no such thing. When I was at a publicly traded company we were frequently puzzled at how "analysts" came up with consensus estimates of where a company's earnings would be for the impending quarter-end. Turns out, mostly they just phone the company and the company tells them what the expected earnings are. Plus or minus whatever spin or bump the company wants to achieve on the actual announcement day. Like, "Wow, XTRAtech came in exactly $0.01 ahead of consensus estimates again, for the 683rd quarter in a row! How do they do that?" Well ... guess.

 

[rteetz]

Or do they? I tried to look up their methodology ... I admit I didn't look very hard ... actually only about 5 seconds, but I found this being quoted on the webs:



Let me try to break that down ...

• statistics furnished directly by the operators
• historical numbers [i.e. old statistics furnished by the operators]
• financial reports [i.e. statistics furnished by the operators]
• the investment banking community [who give them statistics furnished by the operators]
• local tourist organizations [who give them statistics furnished by the operators]

It's not completely bogus. The reason for checking the same statistics from multiple sources is because if someone is telling fibs, they will seldom be able to keep their story consistent when they tell it several times to different people.

In other words, AECOM apparently counts nothing, but depends on the honesty of the theme park operators, with some cross-checking for consistency. They might be able to cross-check against hotel and airline bookings, but really ... how do they know how many days were spent at IOA and how many at the beach? And note that the cross-checked information is generally company-wide (financial reports and banking) or city-wide (tourist organizations). There are apparently no consistency checks available to confirm the supposed numbers of DHS versus AK versus USF.

In other words, there's no precision in anything but turnstile clicks, and TEA aren't privy to those.

From prior experience, I can tell you that a lot of supposed "analysis" of industry and finance is no such thing. When I was at a publicly traded company we were frequently puzzled at how "analysts" came up with consensus estimates of where a company's earnings would be for the impending quarter-end. Turns out, mostly they just phone the company and the company tells them what the expected earnings are. Plus or minus whatever spin or bump the company wants to achieve on the actual announcement day. Like, "Wow, XTRAtech came in exactly $0.01 ahead of consensus estimates again, for the 683rd quarter in a row! How do they do that?" Well ... guess.

Well I should've said they put the numbers together. I have good reason to believe that the numbers that the companies give TEA are fabricated. For example when IOA has no increase or decrease or when DLP and Studios both see the same exact drop. It definitely would be very interesting to see actual Disney internal numbers or universal.

 

[Planogirl]

Yes. I don't fault the method used for data collection. I just find it interesting because it can misrepresent the true picture. What is it that Mark Twain said about them? "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics."

Universal's parks show a 0% growth for IOA but double-digit leaps in attendance at USF. I attribute this to the fact that every HP fan knows that your trip to Hogwarts begins in Diagon Alley. You have to start your day there in order to get the proper immersion in the experience.

And Universal seems to only count first ticket use just like Disney.

I see this as troubling for Animal Kingdom and DHS. Those should be visited first to get the best experience. People seem to be going because they're included so why not? I like Animal Kingdom and feel that it's under-appreciated. DHS not so much.

 

[lockedoutlogic]

To the original question...

Attendance is flat in the aggregate based on the two downturn/rebound periods that had taken up most of tbr last 15 years.

Wdw had the potentially to add real, raw increase now...but a combinanton of stagnation and price policy will kill that.

Just my visceral reaction/theory.

 

[DDLand]

Based on the people at wdwmagic I find it more and more unlikely that we won't hear any big news at D23 except for maybe something at disneyland. It's really unfortunate. And based on the Jim hill news not getting a D23 announcement would make sense. We an only hope...

I think we get phase 1 of something. I haven't seen that part of the plan get canned yet. You never know though.

Star Wars is off the table...

 

[lockedoutlogic]

Lol!

End over end record profits...every three months... And it ain't good enough.

Who wants to play the fool? (Or more accurately...who wants to pay to BE the fool?)

Everybody's hand should be raised right now...I know mine is.

 

[Barnabe]

To the original question...

Attendance is flat in the aggregate based on the two downturn/rebound periods that had taken up most of tbr last 15 years.

Wdw had the potentially to add real, raw increase now...but a combinanton of stagnation and price policy will kill that.

Just my visceral reaction/theory.

That's what I saw when I was looking at the graphs Hydroguy provided.

 

[lockedoutlogic]

That's what I saw when I was looking at the graphs Hydroguy provided.

It's right there plain as day...if you want to see it.

It's not behind the bushes or anything...the definition of "hidden in plain view"

 

[Barnabe]

It's right there plain as day...if you want to see it.

It's not behind the bushes or anything...the definition of "hidden in plain view"

Well, not according to the first few posters on this thread.

 

[Josh Hendy]

Another thing that jumps out of the graph is that Epcot, DHS and AK are really, seriously ugly stepsisters compared to Cinderella's Kingdom. Millions of people say so, and more of them are saying so every year. Cinderella is twice as pretty and twice as much fun to hang around with than *any* of her sisters.


source

"Four great parks" ???

If they insist on using that slogan, they're going to have asterisk it ... [* - One "fantastic" park and three "okay" parks, resulting in an average of 4 "great" parks.]

Otherwise it doesn't add up.

This is BTW like I said previously ... people are paying $100 for the first day of their Magic Your Way pass and they're getting one park that's worth $100. They get additional days for as low as around $50 each ... and yup, they're getting $50 parks. Bang on the money. Except it doesn't match the hype.

 

[Barnabe]

I just don't think you should pay the same for all of the parks. Imo every park should be run as a separate entity. Epcot, for example, should be free and then guests could purchase tickets for the attractions. IMO there just aren't enough attractions to justify the park admission fee.

 

[ChipnDale79]

We go the last week of July this year, yesterday we recieved an update from Touring plans, they changed all our days to 9s. That was a big increase from before.

 

[lockedoutlogic]

Don't look at it from the head...look at it from the tail...

The question is not why it went up to a 9 - the question is why it wasnt a 9 at the end of July in the first place?

 

[mcjaco]

I'm curious as to the huge drop off from 91 to 92 at MK and Epcot......data correction? I also thought I'd see a bigger drop after 2001 (post 9/11) since no one traveled much following that for a while.

Also interesting that most Epcot fanboys will claim 1994 to be the best year for Future World but the attendance seems to be flat.

 

[Jess_S]

All of the no slow times comments are making me sad because I was so hoping that September would -- at least -- not be a zoo. For me, the big surprise on the attendance graph is that California Adventure is the least attended Disney park in the US (though I do see that it made the biggest gains as compared to AK, Epcot and HS). California Adventure has some great rides and amazing theme-ing. I last went there when my son was 1 and too small for most of the rides and I still had a great day just soaking in the ambiance.

 

[mcjaco]

CA was really an incomplete park until the redo, thus the jump in attendance thanks to Carsland and World of Color. It used to be a half day park before then.

 

[WillAustin]

I find it a bit fascinating that there is no dropoff in 2008/2009 as the economy dropped.

 

[Barnabe]

All of the no slow times comments are making me sad because I was so hoping that September would -- at least -- not be a zoo. For me, the big surprise on the attendance graph is that California Adventure is the least attended Disney park in the US (though I do see that it made the biggest gains as compared to AK, Epcot and HS). California Adventure has some great rides and amazing theme-ing. I last went there when my son was 1 and too small for most of the rides and I still had a great day just soaking in the ambiance.

Well, if Disney only counts the first park entered, then that would explain DCA' s numbers. The only people eligible for early entry at DCA are DLR hotel guests. So most people are going to DL first and then hopping over to DCA.

 

[lockedoutlogic]

I find it a bit fascinating that there is no dropoff in 2008/2009 as the economy dropped.

You must not have caught too many comments from bob Iger at the time...

Ridiculous discounting...as they whined and complained about every chance they got for 4 years...

But...straying a little...discounting on rising prices...which in turn leads us to now where you won't see a spike in attendance because they are pricing out their backbone clientele/audience.