Value Equation

[larworth]

Borrowed from another post. Author was Another Voice

One of Disney’s dirty little secrets is the concept of “perceived value”. When Disney switched from individual ride tickets to passports they faced a marketing problem: how many rides does a customer have to go on in a single day to get the perception they got their money’s worth? With tickets it was easy: the guests got exactly what they paid for. But with a “passport”, each guest started a stopwatch the moment they walked under the train station. A visit became a race to get on as many rides as possible. How many is enbugh?

Obviously, you can’t determine what that number is for each and every individual guest, so you estimate for the entire customer base. And it’s a number that doesn’t mean how many rides you build, it’s really used to determine the number of rides you open on any day, the park operating hours and the staffing levels of the attractions themselves (longer lines mean fewer rides in the day).

At the beginning (way back in the early 1980’s) both Disneyland and the Magic Kingdom were pegged at 13 rides. Shows and entertainment weren’t counted; they were “plusses” to the guests visit. Naturally, like any numerical target set for customer service, the target gets lowered over time. The cost of opening and running attractions, an over inflated sense of “brand value”, faulty comparisons of quality or size, and all the usual suspects that any customer-orientated company suffers from over time.

By the time Animal Kingdom and California Adventure opened, the magic number (according to rumors) stood at 6. Yes, you were supposed to get your full $50 or $43 value from seeing six attractions and shows (oh yes, shows are no longer a “plus”). Even Disney recognized that not every attraction is going to be interesting to every guest, so they built a few more than that just to make sure everyone got in their six. There were legions of MBA’s that poured over marketing data, guest surveys, and all kinds of spreadsheets. They were certain of the numbers.

Must be a typo here. Surely, they assume people WANT 6 experiences by lunch-time (OK, maybe a late lunch). I figured "build it light and let it grow" was just risk adverse business practices. Not that they actually believed it was close to actually meeting the average people’s needs. I guess I have to factor in all of those people who get there late, leave for an afternoon siesta, etc. Does 6 seem close to you all?

Boy if they ever go back to ticket books it would cost us a fortune.

 

[All Aboard]

Dateline April 1998

1. Safari
2. Countdown
3. Tough to be a Bug
4. Legend of the Lion King
5. Jungle Book
6. Conservation Station
7. Pangani
8. Discovery River Cruise

Well, they sold THAT as a full day park, so it doesn't seem that 6 is off by too much. And it was a full year before that number increased.

edit---

Ok, add in Pocahontas and the Boneyard and you get to 10 original attractions

Just one year later, the folks up the street opened a new theme park with:

1. Hulk
2. Spidey
3. Doom
4. Bilge Rats
5. Me Ship
6. Dudley
7. Character Show
8. JPRA
9. Flyers
10. Camp Jurassic
11. DD
12. Poseidon
13. Sinbad
14. 1F2FRFBF
15. Carosuessel
16. Cat in the Hat
17. If I ran the Zoo

 

[larworth]

I agree that is how it was marketed

However, I always assumed that internally they knew it wasn't really a full day park. They planned to get there within a couple of years, but when overall resort attendence failed to increase as expected they got cold feet and we have the situation we have today.

If I were designing a park I would have assumed a much higher number was needed to be complete. Their model says 6 satifies the average person. I can't remember ever spending a day when our attraction count was not double digits, but I know we are not typical.

 

[WDWHound]

My wife and I are park commandos. We can do 6 attractions in the first 2 hours easy, provided the lines aren't too bad. 6 in a day? You have got to be kidding me. Assuming we spend 8 hours in the park (we usually spend much more), thats one attraction every 1 hour and 15 minutes. Thats not enough for me to feel I've gotten value. Our average number of attractions in a day is somewhere between 16 and 20 (that includes riding things multiple times).

Regarding Animal Kingdom, I agree that the park had to little to do when it first opened and still needs more today. However, I know other people who see the entire park as one big attaction. All the lush plant life, the animal displays scattered through out the park, the little hidden trails, these are the things that many people value about Animal Kingdom. I think that when the accounteneers cut Beastly Kingdom and delayed Asia, they were counting on people to like the entire park so much that they would not notice the lack of attractions. The problem is, while this worked for many people (my wife could spend days just wandering around and admiring the place), it didn't work for most people (including myself).

In both AK and DCA, they ignored the most basic rule of all. Most people come to the parks primarily for imersive, high quality rides. With the last 2 parks, Disney has been trying to tell us that this is not what we want. They say we want dining experiences or shopping experiences or other give the mouse more of our money experiences. But not matter how much they protest, the truth is we mostly want really good ride experiences. Until they bite the bullet and add these types of experiences to both DCA and AK, people will continue to stay away in droves.

 

[Another Voice]

No typo Mr. Larworth. You are supposed to feel you got your money’s worth after experiencing six attractions during your stay. The length of time it took really isn’t Disney’s concern as long as you have time to shop and to eat and to shop and to buy ride pictures and to shop.

Actually at WDW the goal is to get you out of the main parks as quickly as possible so that you can visit Pleasure Island, the resort restaurants, the Boardwalk, the water parks or all the other “additional ticket” attractions.

There is no “build it light and let it grow” strategy. That’s just fan spin. New attractions are only added as an incentive to encourage repeat visits. You notice that almost all of the “new” stuff is actually replacements. Even ‘PhilaMagic’ is replacing a show, although it could have easily been put into a new building (or one of the many vacant ones).

All of this is Disney’s point of view and not necessarily the point of the view of the guests.

 

[raidermatt]

I'd REALLY like to see the supporting documentation for the surveys/studies/spreadsheets that led them to SIX. Somebody ought to be shot over that conclusion.

Here's our touring SOP. We typically arrive at the park around 11:00, maybe 11:30. Our group is usually myself, wife, now 3 year-old son, and 4-6 other friends (all adults). We use FastPass, but generally make decisions on the fly, planning no more than 2-3 attractions ahead. We eat two meals, lunch and dinner. We will usually stay until closing, but if closing is 10 or later, we don't do that every night. Even without arriving early, or doing meticulous planning, I can't think of a single day we spent at any of the other 5 American parks and didn't do at least 10 rides/attractions.

On our only visit to AK so far, we arrived at about 9:30 am in an effort to see more animals on Kilamanjaro, but that didn't work. We did 6 attractions, plus one attraction twice (Kali), for a total of 7. We were out by 3:30 and spent a couple of hours at BB (park hopper, no extra money spent).

I have to agree with Larworth that it seems nearly inconceivable that Disney execs considered AK a full-day park for most guests. Yes, it could be for those who like to just experience the park, but did somebody really think that would work to the tune of 10 million guests (or whatever the sustained projection was)?

I really believe they only felt they could get away with this because of the other three parks, and the fact that hopper/AP guests wouldn't be too upset because they would view the park as a supplement, even if wan't marketed that way.

The other problem with the "6 is enough strategy" is getting repeat visitors. Even if 6 is enough for a day, that doesn't mean you can have 6-8 total attractions and get repeat visitors. Not everybody will like all 6-8 attractions, and even if they do, they saw them all in one day. Why go back? Even if you replace one, is that enough?

I can undestand the replacing philosophy at MK. Yes, there is some unused space, but if your going to expand a park and have a limited amount of capital to use, you'd better use that capital on AK or maybe DS or Epcot, at least for now.