I still believe fewer people are going to patronize the Dining Plan and the restaurants.
This is *two* beliefs, not one.
1: fewer people will buy the plan
2: restaurants will seat fewer patrons
I fully agree with belief #1. The value has been cut significantly, and straightforward economics suggests that a reduction in plan uptake must follow.
I am less convinced about belief #2. I suspect some restaurants will probably see a drop-off in business. But, I also suspect nearly all theme park locations, and many resort locations, will remain at or near capacity for much of the year. They may have to take in more walk-ups, but we've all seen many walk-ups turned away, night after night, at many of these restaurants, even at off hours.
There is significant unmet demand for the sit down restaurants in the theme parks at all but the slowest of times. This unmet demand now has an outlet, because there are fewer DDP guests hogging tables eating discounted meals. As more reports from January and February pre P-Week come in, we'll know a lot more about how busy these restaurants are during slower times in the parks. And, even if they aren't quite full, the average revenue per diner is likely to go up, because more Plan dollars go to the restaurant (rather than to the servers in gratuities), and there are fewer Plan guests. Anyone else is paying full-freight, excepting of course the DDE guests.
More broadly, I've always viewed DDP first and foremost as a mechanism to further create a captive audience. Nearly every new marketing program disney has come up with in the past three years---ME, the MYW ticket structure, and DDP---has been geared to capture, in advance, every available hour and dollar of the average guest. Filling the restaurants was never the point. Filling the resorts with people who pre-purchased everything they needed for their
entire vacation was the point. Why spend a day at Universal, when that 5th day at Disney only costs $2? Why worry about saving a few bucks in an offsite restaurant when (a) we don't have a car thanks to ME and resort transportation, and (b) the dining plan is such a good deal?
But, the Mouse's marketing has been almost too successful. Resorts were at 90% capacity for FY 2007. Think about that. The industry average is somewhere in the 60s. At WDW, 90% of every available room-night was booked---and in this past year, discounts were still fewer and farther between, so I suspect RevPAR did even better. We'll know for sure when the Annual Report is released.
So, the DDP is not needed as much to fill hotel rooms, so they can afford to reduce its uptake rate, while extracting more profit from those who do use it.
What's most interesting to me is that, so far, Disney is not adding
any cash room capacity. New DVC units are coming on-line, but no new cash resorts---and DVC is cannibalizing some existing cash units at CR and AKL. The only new cash rooms on property are being built at the expense of third parties. That's an interesting phenomenon when room occupancy is in the stratosphere.
