Let's not wade too deeply into the "revenue/cost/profit/inflation" pool. If Disney is doing such a bang up job and MM+ is the engine driving all of this, then explain its 8% profit increase for 2014 compared to the rest of the Entertainment industry in the Fortune 500*:
I was responding to the notion that "Disney's inflation lives in a bubble". Inflation is inflation. (Energy costs. Salaries. Health Care. Benefits. Insurance.) Unless you are aware of some form of inflation that is unique to Theme Parks. And we can't siphon off the theme park division to compare it to other companies' theme park divisions. These numbers are all companywide and the companies that have theme parks count those as only a small part of the overall company. But......if you want to compare profit increase as between Disney theme parks and Universal theme parks for 2014, I'll accept that challenge. Someone out there probably has those numbers.
I am not trying to draw that correlation. To the contrary. I have been steadfast in my position that one cannot look at Disney's financial statement and declare MM+ to be a success. It is the "I love FP+" crowd and the "FP+ must be working because Disney is rolling in it" crowd that is doing that. Surely you have seen those posts. I am simply pointing out that Disney, as a company, is doing "just OK" when it comes to its finances. In a year when Theme Park attendance was at an all time high and Frozen broke every record imaginable, Disney's overall performance was fair to middling.
Given the recent rate of attendance increases, I would say that the voices would be heard loud and clear if attendance dropped 1%. Or better yet, the rate of increase dropped. If attendance gained a steady 5%-7% every year over the past 5 years and slows to 2%-4% over the next 3 years, would that concern Disney? It might. But they'd never admit to it.
I wasn't suggesting that, I was saying that inflation is inflation, no matter where you are, including Disney. That was in response to some people implying that ticket price increases were pure profit, which they aren't.
But they just might be. That's the whole point. We don't know. In a year when overhead remains steady but ticket prices increase, then the price increase can indeed be all profit. The whole reason for showing what the other Entertainment companies are earning is to show that none of them are saddled with crushing inflation right now. No one is.
My sources are linked.
At times it may seem as if South Americans are a huge presence. But in the larger scheme of things, I doubt that their numbers move the meter all that much. It would be interesting to see the numbers though, because from what I have seen, many of those large groups do no planning at all and seem to be led by tour group operators who probably put in all the effort.
