WDW Demographics

[wisblue]

I have a question about the makeup of WDW visitors that I know nobody can answer with any certainty. But, I would be interested in opinions and guesses.

My question is:

What percentage of WDW guests do you think are active participants on boards like this or any other social media? For example, consider a day at the Magic Kingdom with attendance of about 45,000 which, based on industry estimates, seems to be close to average. How many of those 45,000 people do you think are part of a party that includes at least one person that cares enough about Disney to post opinions on the Internet?

I confess that I have no real idea, in part because I don't know how many forums similar to the Dis are out there and how active they might be. I am not really including people who just go to the internet for information and assistance in planning, but am focusing on how many people are passionate enough about the subject to post opinions and experiences on forums like this, or on Twitter or Facebook or something similar.

My guess is that the percentage is less than 10%, and maybe significantly less than 10%. But, I would be interested in what others think.

 

[SCDisneyfanatic]

I think 10% is way too high. You may get 10% of people that look at a site like this, but my guess is more like 1-2 % actually are posters. It would be interesting to see how many people have registered accounts with this site. Your average would come to about 16.5 million visitors annually...1% would be 165,000 people posting on WDW sites. (Math in public...hope I didn't goof up those numbers...lol).

 

[AngiTN]

My vote is 1% do significant planning. Another 5% that do a small amount of planning. The rest wing it on the fly

 

[wisblue]

I think 10% is way too high. You may get 10% of people that look at a site like this, but my guess is more like 1-2 % actually are posters. It would be interesting to see how many people have registered accounts with this site. Your average would come to about 16.5 million visitors annually...1% would be 165,000 people posting on WDW sites. (Math in public...hope I didn't goof up those numbers...lol).

I think 10% is way on the high side too, but keep in mind that that 16.5 million includes a lot of multiple visits by frequent visitors or guests with long trips and members of their party. So, if one Diser with a family of 4 spends 5 days in the MK in a year, that one Diser represents 20 visits to the MK.

That's partly why I used the example of one day in which nobody would be double counted.

 

[Priory]

I've recently spoken with two parties traveling to WDW in December and neither of them had done a lick of research or planning. Just based on that irrelevant anecdote I'd guess we're all the minority. It surprises me people will drop so much money without doing research. Then again, the average person probably wouldn't guess that planning a theme park vacation takes more effort and research than some post-secondary degrees.

 

[DOOM1001]

2.36%

 

[KimBean]

Based on the number of people that used to yell at us while we are going through the Legacy FP queue....

3%

 

[bumbershoot]

My vote is 1% do significant planning. Another 5% that do a small amount of planning. The rest wing it on the fly

Not sure about that, just going by the number of colored MBs I saw in the parks the other week. To get a colorful MB pretty much means that you did *some* planning, at least to the level of finding the spot on MDE to customize the MB.

And I heard tons of people talking about their FP+ reservations, which means they made those arrangements.



Now, as for this site...we're a teensy percentage of overall visitors.

 

[agavegirl1]

Hmmm...

Obsessive Commando planning with touring plans etc...less than 1%
Moderate planning including purchasing a guidebook, using MDE...12%
Some planning...what Disney tells them they should do...20%
No planning or just the barest minimum...the other 67%

 

[Mikie]

Hmmm...

Obsessive Commando planning with touring plans etc...less than 1%
Moderate planning including purchasing a guidebook, using MDE...12%
Some planning...what Disney tells them they should do...20%
No planning or just the barest minimum...the other 67%

I'd buy that breakdown. I've casually met 3 people from different circles who Disney'ed recently and do the color-coded spreadsheet routine, another 5 or so who knew about at least one site like EasyWDW a or Kenny the Pirate or Touring Plans and then a surprisingly large number (surprising to me - maybe 10 or so) who either knew only about Disney's own site, used a travel agent and knew only what she told them, or assumed stuff existed but never looked at it themselves. Those are only the family trip organizers, I could then count every family member in their groups of 4-9 who go along for the ride and do no planning.

Even 1% is 450 guests on an average day. . . I'm not sure there are 450 active social media posters (related to WDW) in WDW on a given day. . .