The chief executive officer of walter disney admitted last march that disneyland's ticket price increases might be “too radical”, but he suggested that disney could raise prices further. Data show that the prices of disney world and disney thematic park have increased by 3871 per cent over the past 50 years, rising almost 40 times。
The shanghai disneygate is up four times
The shanghai disney announced at the end of last year that the prices of tickets would be adjusted under the current four-level ticket structure, effective 23 june 2023. Of these, the “conventional day” ticket price was $475, covering most of the flat days and part of the weekends; the “special conventional day” ticket price was $599, covering part of the weekend and part of the day; the “peak day” ticket price was $719, covering most of the summer, the period during and around some of china's statutory holidays, international holiday celebrations, park special events and other peak passenger days; and the “special peak day” ticket price was $799, covering some of china's official holidays and holidays, the day of special events in paradise and the summer part。
Since the opening of the business, shanghai disney has experienced several price adjustments:
At the beginning of the park in june 2016, a two-tier pricing system was introduced, with the “hallday” ticket of $370 and the “peak day” ticket of $499。
Since june 2018, the “event day” ticket has risen to $399, the “peak day” ticket has risen to $575, and a new “leave ticket” of $665 has been introduced, with a three-tier pricing system。
Since june 2020, the third class of fares has been restructured into four classes, with a total of $399 for “conventional days”; $499 for “special conventional days”; $599 for “peak days”; and $699 for “special peak days”。
A new round of price increases was implemented on 9 january 2022, with “conventional days” ticket prices of $435; “special conventional days” ticket prices of $545; “peak days” ticket prices of $659; and “special peak days” ticket prices of $769。
By comparison, the shanghai disney's “conventional day” tickets, “special conventional day” tickets, “peak day” tickets and “special peak day” tickets will increase by $40, $54, $60 and $30, respectively, after the next month's adjustment。
The number of single-day visitors reached about 40,000
Before this increase in prices in shanghai disneyland, a stoppage of the annual card was announced in march this year. At the time, there was a comment by netizens: this did not preserve the tourist experience and it was so ugly. The high price of tickets is considered by many to be detrimental to the experience of ordinary consumers. If a three-member out-of-the-field family came to shanghai to play, the total cost could be around $10,000 based on the per capita consumption of the park, plus additional expenses such as eating a residence, a rather stressful figure for salaried families。
In explaining the reasons for the increase, disney officially stated that the increase was due to market demand and return on investment, while providing better services and a happier experience for tourists。
The palace of shanghai disney. Photo source/shanghai disney officer network
Despite complaints, even with multiple price increases, the number of visitors to shanghai disney remained high at around 40,000 per day. Earlier, shanghai disney announced the relaunching of the “sex-in-sex with disney's friends” campaign, and the platform data show that only half a day after the news was released, disneygate tickets increased the heat ring significantly by 350 per cent over the previous day and surrounding hotels by more than 260 per cent over the previous day。
The reasons for this are analysed by the industry: “the quality, services and regional decisions of disney are acceptable to most of the older clients and a new group of clients are willing to join, and the price increases will have some but less impact on disney's traffic.”
Disney has the skills behind the price hike
In general, disney park ticket increases are based on new projects or activities and new ip roll-out。
On the one hand, the shanghai disney price increases were selected on the eve of the winter holidays, targeting large groups of students and parents. In addition, public sources have stated that the mad animals' park, built in shanghai, disney, will be launched this year as an attractive “mean”。
U li yun, associate professor at the china institute of cultural and tourism industries, beijing institute of foreign languages, noted that for disney, the most attractive was ip and disney had an ongoing new ip injection. Disney's own products are attractive to many consumers who have not been to disneyland, and disney needs to launch more new projects, products and content to attract them to repeat consumption。
Lina belle is a popular doll image of tourists。
In september 2021, lina belle was born in shanghai disneyland and quickly became “top”, not only for the derivatives, but also for one time making the shanghai disneygate ticket difficult. In industry analysis, “lina bell is the result of the long-term accumulation of disney ip.” lina bell belongs to the “duffy family” operated by disney and operated long before lina bell's fire, of which stardelle was also a “sale star”。
There's been a huge loss of millions of dollars in the news industry
The walter disney company, founded in 1923, will mark its 100th anniversary this year. A hundred years ago, disney had become a major player in the media and entertainment industry, but also faced the multiple challenges of transition。
On 8 february, eastern united states time, disney disclosed the first quarter of fiscal year 2023 and announced a global staff reduction of 7,000, or about 3 per cent of its workforce. Looking at the flow of disney in shanghai, many people find it hard to understand the decision to retrench 7,000 people, but disney does have a secret。
The quarterly financial statements show that the total disney camp received $23. 51 billion, an 8 per cent increase over the same period, at a new lower rate than in the quarter of recent years. Net profits amounted to $1. 28 billion, an 11 per cent increase over the same period. Disney profits grew to a large extent from the thematic park business. The disney thematic park experience and product lines received $8. 74 billion in a quarter, a 21 per cent increase over the same period and a 25 per cent increase in profits over the same period。
In contrast, the disney heavy bets flowed media operations faced significant losses. Businesses that rely on streaming media subscriptions have lost $1. 05 billion in quarterly operating losses, more than double the same period of the previous year。
Since the launch of disney+ in 2019, disneystream media operations have lost over $9. 05 billion, and downside efficiency gains will become the key word for disney in 2023. In fact, in addition to downsizing, disney plans to cut costs by $5. 5 billion during the fiscal year。
Disney's all over the place
It is understood that the disneygate fare increase is not the shanghai family. It is understood that in march 2021, tokyo disneyland and disney marine park, japan, increased the prices for weekend and holiday tickets, but the prices for workday tickets remained unchanged. In 2019, the tickets to disneyland in hong kong, china, were also adjusted, with an average increase of about 3 per cent, following successive years of price increases at disneyland in hong kong, china。
The data show that the lowest prices for the shanghai disneygate tickets, after price adjustments, remain low at the global disneyland base. According to public information, disneyland, california, united states of america, us$ 104 (current exchange rate approximately hk$ 726), orlando walter disney world wonder kingdom world theme park, us$ 129 (current exchange rate approximately hk$ 880), paris disneyland, france, euro56 (current rate approximately hk$ 415), tokyo disneyland, japan, jp$ 7,900 (current rate approximately hk$ 415) and hong kong, china, hk$ 639 (current rate approximately hk$ 570)。
In addition, in 2020, the then ceo's chapec introduced the online reservation system, eliminating the previous free queue service and introducing two fee-paying fast queue services. In shanghai disneyland, it is the honouring card service, where payments are exempted from queues for specific projects, such as overflight horizon projects, at a cost of $180。
Price increases have been one of disney's means of increasing revenue. Data show that the prices of disney world and disney thematic park have increased by 3871 per cent over the past 50 years, rising almost 40 times。
However, the internal disney ticket price increase was not a single sound. In march of this year, the ceo of disney company, ag, acknowledged that the disneyland gate price hikes could be too radical and that the loss of ongoing media operations could be compensated by the thematic park price hike, which would be detrimental to the subsequent development of both operations. But obviously, disney chose the simplest way. Eg also suggested that “disney might raise prices further in the future”。
In fact, disney price increases have now been questioned by many visitors. The view was expressed that price increases were too frequent and too high to be worthwhile. Some netizens say they can't help but choose the right time and way to play. We'll see if the shanghai disney round price hike has any impact on the number of tourists。
Upstream news has been synthesized by beijing business journal, top news, chinese business journal, chiu news, chinese newsweek, etc
