As someone who works with data a lot, I’m not entirely certain here that I agree this is just a gold/blue dress.
My gold/blue dress comment was in reference to Sethschroeder's comment regarding competing against incentivized sold-out resorts.
I still maintain that the incentives on sold-out resorts, while maybe a novel tool used due to the pandemic, would be unlikely to be deployed absent some concern around current ownership interest in the current, actively sold resort.
They discounted everything right out of the closure and they took them away as soon as the first round of incentives ended. If sales were going so bad on actively selling resorts they would have kept them around.
There still are incentives on sold-out resorts. Are you suggesting sales are going badly, SETH?
Not sure I'd conclude the same thing, but only that there are enough current owners more likely to buy another resort that Disney is willing to take the unprecedented step of discounting those resorts to nudge them. I agree that Riviera as a percentage of all resorts sold is challenged by the incentives, but we're probably chicken/egg on this point.
Now if they increase the discounting again back to summer incentive levels on RIV or bring back sold out discounts then I think that points to slipping sales compared to where their expectations are.
That would be a bad look if they said incentives were going away and then went back on that. Incentives always go through fluctuations. It feeds the FOMO cycle. Great incentives (and Riviera saw its best ever this summer) are always, invariably, followed by less appealing incentives.
I have no doubt that Disney is just fine with how sales are going, given the pandemic. I also have no doubt that pre-pandemic, Disney was very happy with how sales were going.
I don't subscribe to the idea that sales are doing poorly, and would attribute such held positions as being colored by either personal perspectives on the restrictions or the Riviera resort itself. Nothing I have seen or heard has suggested this is the case.
Riviera will sell out just like every other resort that came before it not called Aulani. And every subsequent WDW resort after it will as well with the same restrictions. I don't see that changing as long as previously-anti-X-resorters continue to become their most vocal advocates. It means Disney has not hit the ownership pain point yet and is still leaving money on the table. And that won't change until they hold all the cards.