The Impact of Increasing Prices of Entry to Walt Disney World and Disneyland

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During the second week of February 2018, Walt Disney World and Disneyland increased their entry prices. The price of each entry option was heightened anywhere from a couple dollars to over ten dollars more. The price for a family of four to attend Magic Kingdom park in Orlando, FL for one day now amounts to $526.


Personally, I am not super surprised that Disney is raising its prices; I imagine that, from a business perspective, this is the ideal change. Disney is so enormously popular; people plan out entire trips just to visit the parks. For this reason, I doubt that the amount of people who attend the Disney parks will actually change all that much. Most people will probably be willing to pay the higher prices, increasing Disney’s revenue pretty extensively over time. However, I think that the socioeconomic class diversity at Disney (to the extent that it exists...) may end up decreasing. While people obviously have to have a certain amount of wealth in order to visit Disney prior to the changes, the newly adjusted prices may make the park more exclusive.

Comments

  1. Lisa AndresFebruary 21, 2018 at 7:56 AM

    What's fascinating -- and I don't think I'd ever get a solid answer about this -- is that I suspect Disney raises it's prices to keep it's demographics (primarily) solidly middle-class (and upper-middle-class). It's selling a vacation experience -- and one that is markedly different from a day trip to, say, Carowinds. (Which is a fun day-trip, but definitely not like Disney.)

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