3. A new stabilized attendance cap emerges…
Obviously, attendance numbers at theme parks will spend at least the next decade being benchmarked against the “before,” “during,” and “after” of the global pandemic of 2020, which shuttered destination parks around the globe for weeks, months, or in sporadic bursts with artificial attendance limitations and highly modified operations. The trend since has been the rebound. You can see that in action with, say, Magic Kingdom…
One inescapable metric is when (or maybe, whether) parks will again reach the “pre-pandemic” heights many experienced in 2019. Magic Kingdom – the number-one most attended theme park on Earth – has “leveled out” in the 17 million guest range for three years, effectively establishing its new annual attendance is about 15% below what it was reaching pre-pandemic… But it doesn’t look or feel like Disney is disappointed about that.
The reality is that most operators seem to be signaling that their goal isn’t to pick up where 2019 left off. Former Disney CEO Bob Chapek sort of said the quiet part out loud when in 2022 he described an “unfavorable mix” of attendance – seen as a dig at robust Annual Passholder programs that support frequent visitors who tend to spend less.
The notion is that Disney (and indeed, the whole industry) now seeks an audience comprised of fewer guests who spend more on average. Seen as a “win-win,” the idea is that the parks should be less crowded than they were in 2019, but with guests who are willing to opt into upcharge line-skipping systems, increasingly-specialized merch, and ticket pricing that vastly outpaces inflation. In other words, it could be that Disney isn’t looking to cram another 3 million people a year (that’s over 8,000 a day) into Magic Kingdom… so long as those who do come keep the “per cap spending” metric high on quarterly earnings reports… As a result…
4. Disney World’s post-pandemic boom is over…
A global crisis like the 2020 pandemic has unpredictable ramifications that more or less belong under the study of chaos theory. But in hindsight, one of the outcomes of the pandemic was a period of “revenge travel,” when Americans – flush with pandemic stimulus funds and filled with pent-up demand for vacationing – went big. Entire PhD theses could be written about the psychological, sociological, and financial environment that led to Americans to spend more than ever on tourism in 2022 and 2023. Indeed, the pent-up demand gave destination parks confidence to raise prices and cut perks like crazy…
But to be sure, the “revenge travel” surge is over. 2024’s data shows a Disney World whose four parks are all more or less statistically stagnant from the year prior. Again, the notion that Disney World’s parks have stabilized may in fact be a feature of the company’s plan, not a bug… but reports of slim seasons with sporadic crowds and days that resemble the gentler, less-crowded days of the early 2000s ring true with the data.
Whereas our analysis of this data over the past few years has been able to commentate on double digit swings, there are no such swings in 2024, revealing a new pattern of flatness and post-surge correction. Which compels us to also update our forecast for that constant ballet of Disney World’s non-Castle parks…
5. EPCOT is still in the spotlight… for now
Just as it’s a foregone conclusion that Magic Kingdom will be the world’s most-visited theme park, so too is it known that Walt Disney World’s other three theme parks practically blow in the wind, totally untethered from any “locked in” position or order. The sort of rule of thumb here is that whichever park got the “most recent big thing” is going to rank highest. In 2022, that was Disney’s Hollywood Studios (the sixth-most highly-attended theme park that year!), riding high on its then-recent Toy Story, Star Wars, and Mickey Mouse additions.
In 2023, EPCOT swept in as the number two park for the resort – the first full year of impact from Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind. It maintains the silver spot for 2024. It’s also likely EPCOT will remain the highest-attended of Disney World’s non-Castle parks in 2025 since the other two contenders – Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom – both have big projects in the works, but certainly not until 2027 or later. But once Monstropolis and Tropical Americas are open, it’s likely EPCOT will return to being fourth of four… at least until its own “next big thing” opens.
And speaking of big things on the horizon, read on…