park demographics

[burcs]

not sure where to put this post, but...

so disney crushes 2nd quarter earnings and beats expectations $.58 vs $51. one of the interesting things to me was this quote from Iger:

"We're definitely benefiting from the dollar weakness ... in two ways"

he is referring to increased foreign tourism (no surprise there) and "a weak U.S. dollar kept domestic vacationers closer to home".

so basically, even though there are families that will be priced out of going to WDW, there are families being priced out of international travel and "defaulting" to WDW.

price increases are likely to continue until DIS finds it's equilibrium point for pricing (and level of quality and service at that price).

i dunno. corporate disney has a long way to go before ruining the magic for me. as a shareholder, i expect rising earnings. i'd be lying, though, if i said i didn't agree with a lot of the points brought up in the "decline by degrees" thread. opinions?

paul

[TW1]

I keep seeing Disney as more and more "recession proof" for the two reasons you and Iger mentioned.

The balance to me is in preparing for the shifting demographics. As more foreign tourists arrive and more high-end Americans see Disney as a fallback, WDW needs to be ready to meet their demands for quality. Price is not their issue, it is expectations. Disney must live up to their current customers expectations so that these customers view their choice to visit the House of Mouse as a valued decision.

Today's foreign tourists and upscale American visitors can not leave thinking "oh well, that was interesting...hope we don't have to settle for that again next year." These visitors need to leave thinking "Wow! I never expected WDW to be that great."

As the economy shifts back and these tourists are replaced by a different demographic, WDW needs to prepare for their expectations of value.

For those of us that go often, regardless of the economic trends, it will be interesting to see if we can pick up on any subtle differences. I do not think the shift in demographics of park visitors will be mirrored in DVC purchasers, that is a different market, but one that continues to grow and may actually grow rapidly during the down turn as interests rates drop and people think twice about buying a second home vs buying a lesser commitment in real estate but a second home nonetheless.

[BONZO]

Hi,

From a Brit's pespective, the Dollar/ Pound rate is working really well in our favour whereas the the Euro / Pound is going the other way.

I suspect that our "traditional" European vacations are no longer becoming the cheap option that they used to be and vacations to the US are closely being looked at as a viable alternative.

Even a vacation within the UK at school holiday times can work out very costly.

For us, we've been going to WDW for 20 years this year and bought into DVC last year so we'll find the money whatever the rate becomes so that we can get our Disney fix.