What is the percentage of guests visiting the theme parks who are staying on property?

[Thumper1066]

This is an honest question not some trivia question? I have no idea, but I thought somebody out there might know.

 

[dansdad]

I could be off, but I am pretty sure I read an article somewhat recently that said 35% of the total visitors are staying in a WDW resort.

I've been trying to find the article before posting this, but I haven't been able to. I do remember being surprised by how small the number was.

 

[minnie mum]

I think Dansdad is close in this estimate. I haven't seen the numbers of actual guests, but Touring Plans lists over 30,000 rooms at Disney resorts (incl DVC). It lists over 60,000 non Disney hotel rooms. And then there all the condo and house rentals. So a rough estimate of 1/3 of guests staying on site seems about right.

 

[fla4fun]

It varies too, depending on the time of year. For example, during September most of the off property hotels have very low occupancy rates, but Disney uses promotions to fill their rooms to a higher occupancy rate. So in September, you would see a higher ratio of on property guests vs off property. During the summer, everyone has decent occupancy rates, so the ratio would be lower. I think 35% is a good average though.

 

[whiporee]

I think if you break it down, there are about 100,000 people in the resorts on any given day. (30,000 rooms at 3.3 people per room). If you take that out for a year, that's 36 million or so people in the resorts for the year. Last year, estimates were that WDW had a total of 50 or so million visitors, so I think the percentage of resorts guests at the park is closer to 60 percent. That's why there are no slow days anymore, because the rooms have to be filled so they find a way with discounts or whatever.

If you look at days when the parking lots are empty, the busses and the parks still seem full. That's resort traffic, IMO, and I think it's the reason the crowds are so plentiful so often.

 

[jtowntoflorida]

All the experts agree that it's actually offsite visitors who drive park attendance, not onsite. That's why even during the summer, when onsite occupancy is its lowest (due to the high prices), park attendance is still really high. Disney also fills a lot of rooms with conventions, etc., who really have almost no effect on park attendance, so I don't think you can make a correlation between resort occupancy and park attendance.

 

[Best Aunt]

When we were there in August, I was surprised by how few people in the parks were wearing Magic Bands. That seemed to be a sign that most of the people were not staying in Disney hotels. I was guessing that people staying in Disney hotels would be wearing Magic Bands, and people not staying in Disney hotels would not be wearing Magic Bands. At that time, the gift shops were not supposed to be selling Magic Bands unless they were linking the Magic Band to the person's theme park admission. Since it was very warm out, people's Magic Bands would not have been hidden under sweater or jacket sleeves. Of course, not everyone staying at a Disney hotel would actually be wearing his/her Magic Band. Just an observation, not an attempt at data analysis.