South Florida Sun-Sentinel Palm Beach (Sunday)
Yes, big parks’ tourism is down
Disney vs. DeSantis not main cause, experts say
This hasn’t been the most sizzling of summers for Central Florida’s theme parks.
Rising costs, searing heat and the shifting of post-pandemic travel to international locations and cruise ships are putting a damper on attendance, experts say.
Those same experts don’t think Disney’s culture war battle with Gov. Ron DeSantis is a major player, pointing to a nationwide slump.
The attractions industry “is flatter than a pancake,” said Dennis Speigel, CEO of International Theme Park Services Inc.
“Six to eight weeks ago I started seeing this softening haze move in,” Speigel said. “It’s spending and [higher] reaction pricing at all the parks, not just Disney.”
Orlando’s theme parks do not release attendance figures, but reports of “empty” attractions spreading on social media are subjective and can lack context.
“It’s less crowded than it was in 2021, for sure, and probably less than it was in 2022,” said AJ Wolfe, who runs the unofficial Disney Food Blog. Her staff members are in Orlando parks daily.
“But at the same time … it’s still July in Disney World,” she said. “It’s still going to be packed. Even if there’s 10,000 fewer bodies in there, there’s still 70,000 bodies.”
The companies have rolled out enticements that could draw more visitors.
Disney is planning the return of the Disney Dining Plan. Universal Orlando has an annual pass offer that tacks an extra three months onto a year’s worth of visits. SeaWorld Orlando has had short-term buy-one, get-one-free admission deals.
Disney executive outlook
The soft summer hasn’t surprised company leadership at Disney.
At a shareholders meeting i n May then-CFO Christine McCarthy said the second half of the fiscal year would have an “unfavorable comparison against the prior year’s incredibly successful 50th-anniversary celebration at Walt Disney World.”
McCarthy, who recently resigned, did note improvements with Disney’s international parks and cruise line.
“People are starting to cruise again when it cratered in 2020,” Wolfe said. “So you’re almost seeing that revenge travel on cruising now that you saw in the parks in 2021.”
And Walt Disney Co. CEO Robert Iger acknowledged a dip during a recent interview with CNBC’s David Faber.
“Florida opened up early during COVID and created huge demand and didn’t have competition because there were a number of other places, states that were not open yet,” Iger said.
“Florida was the only thing, the only game in town. There’s a lot more competition today.”
Line time
Touring Plans, a vacation-planning site, monitors wait times for park attractions, which owner Len Testa said is a strong indicator of overall attendance.
“It’s definitely down, 2023 versus 2022,” Testa said.
They use the theme parks’ official apps for data and have employees at the parks who spot-check wait times.
“In addition to that, we have hundreds of families in the parks every day, and through our app, they tell us how long they’re actually waiting in line,” Testa said.
A Touring Plans report indicating sparse attendance on July 4 drew international media attention, sometimes with a political angle.
“They’re all, like, repeating this narrative about fighting Ron DeSantis is a bad idea,” Testa said.
“But if you look at Universal, Universal also did not do well. I don’t think the governor is going to claim lower attendance at Universal is a benefit of fighting Disney. That would not be politically savvy.”
Inhospitable weather, including a threat of thunderstorms that could dampen fireworks shows, was a factor for July 4 attendance, Testa said.
Crowds bounced back the next day and data showed similarly slow results in California parks, where, people presumably “are less inclined to listen to Florida’s governor,” he said.
Another sign of attendance drop was that Orange County’s tax revenue stemming from hotel rooms and other short-term lodging was down 6.7% for May. It was the second consecutive month of decline after 14 months of increases.
“We think that is roughly in line with the theme-park attendance drop,” Testa said.
“If you told me that themepark attendance is down between Disney and Universal between 15 percent and 25 percent, I would 100 percent believe that because that’s what we’re seeing internally.”