If a trip to a Disney Park has held any reputation, it would be that of expense and impossibility to accumulate necessary funds. It’s becoming increasingly evident that prices are no longer a fixed value, ever increasing by the month until unbearability occurs. It’s not likely that the average individual would give up an arm and a leg to attend a Disney Park, yet the prices to enter still skyrocket at an astonishing rate. In fact, over the past few years, ticket prices have only increased, with tickets valued at around $107 to about $119 on peak days at Walt Disney World. This astonishing rate, matched with the ever increasing price of hotels, makes it seem increasingly more unlikely that guests will attend the park just on the basis that they’re being essentially drained of funds.
Yet, the Disney company has played it smart. The Disney name has become a household name, so important in fact that a key pillar in the development of children resides in their first visit to a Disney Park. The nuclear family that popular culture likes to identify with revolves around a perfect vacation in with the colorful It’s a Small World serves as a representation for such experiences. The company can increase these prices, because the name brand they’ve developed allows them to. Guests unwittingly pay these prices because apparently it’s worth the cost. It’s worth being drained and fiscally abused because for a few days you can share an experience that every family has to, because that’s just how it is.
This toxic relationship between the Disney Fiscal Policy and the guests who serve under it only reinforces the issues that the company has in terms of understanding where the bottom dollar falls and who their prime market is. The disillusion is only further identified, especially when noting the inability to balance the pricing with the income of the consumer.
Take for example, the suite of hotels that used to represent the low-cost option that Disney has neglected in recent years. In the current day, these hotels still range for about $100 a day, a steep price compared to the out of park resorts. This isn’t to say that the added amenities don’t warrant the price asked, but the fact that the lower price option still asks a hefty fee per night (excluding park tickets), seems to miss the point of offering such options.
However, future developments seem to offer an opportunity to upcharge said resorts while still offering them as the “cheap” option. Recent rumors have centered around the addition of a gondola system for the parks to provide an alternate means of transportation when compared to the current day busing system, but the fact that the system both hits Pop Century and Art of Animation resorts provide Disney an easy option to further increase pricing. The cheap resorts will receive new benefits, and with new benefits will come increased pricing. “Of course they’ll pay more for the gondola, it’s the experience!” would likely be the response by any Disney executive. In turn however, increasing the prices of the low-cost options will cause a chain reaction, in which every other hotel would likely see a raise in cost just to maintain the perceived option of a low-cost resort following such internal additions.
Through the years, it’s been a common practice to scalp customers when purchasing merchandise at a Disney Park. It’s become a joke in fact that attractions used to end in a gift shop, and that mentality of taking any possibly jab at a guest’s wallet encapsulates the business mentality of the company. It seems however that the company wants to pull from guests even further before they enter the park, ever increasing the price of admission. But at some point this will not last. The dam will eventually break. The economic pressure that the Disney Company is placing on its guests can only hold for so long until guests begin to retort using their money.
Pricing the very people that support the company out of the option to partake in the opportunities available only serves to alienate any further profits. This greed, whether it be charging over $100 for the cheapest resort option, consistently increasing the price of park tickets beyond an understandable value, or even increasing costs of limited edition merchandise* show a rift between the expectations of the executives at Disney and the guests that pay their salaries.
Eventually, the idolization of the Disney Parks will come to a brutal end, exactly when the crowds realize that they, for no reason, must abide to this inane culture of economic exploitation.
Ryan Dorman is a Columnist for the Boardwalk Times.
