Disney is Looking at Dynamic Pricing Model In US Parks To Gouge Even More From Customers
Once upon a time the “Disney difference” meant something positive. It meant you paid a lot but got so much more. Now it seems to mean the opposite as Disney’s mask keeps slipping off in the quest for more money.
Disney theme park tickets are already ridiculously priced, especially since that ticket just gets you into the parks. If you want to be able to get on a lot of rides and attractions, they expect you to pay for upgrades like Lightning Lane.
Now, Disney’s Chief Financial Officer, Hugh Johnston, has said that the company is looking into using dynamic pricing in the United States parks, starting with Disneyland.
What is dynamic pricing?
It’s the pricing strategy Wendy’s tried to use where you change your prices (potentially several times a day) to try and scrape more money out of customers. They call it adjusting prices based on supply, demand, competitors, etc., but it will likely be an AI driven program that change prices “moment by moment” to maximizes profits from the dwindling number of customers Disney has left.
Maybe if they just went back to the original meaning of the “Disney difference” they wouldn’t need to implement this kind of stuff.
I’m sure if you buy your tickets in advance it will not change the prices, but the closer you get to a busy date the higher the ticket prices could go. Kind of like when you are booking airplane tickets.
Disney ticket tiers used to be simple but now it’s gotten ridiculous
Not that long ago Disney was simple. You paid for your tickets based on peak season, regular season, and off season. One set price for each season, and a multiple day discount if that got better the more days your purchased.
Then Disney changed it to pricing based on the day and got rid of a lot of the good multi-day discounts. But people still got FastPass+ so it was worth it.
Greed led to the replacement of FastPass with paid Lighting Lane services and now Disney is taking it one step further with dynamic pricing.
Johnston admits that they already do this with Disney hotels.
He also claims that it won’t create negative customer feedback. Oh, I wholeheartedly think it is going to create a lot of negative feedback.
According to Scott Gustin on X,
“Johnston said Disney already does it in hotels to some degree, and this is bringing it to the parks. He said Disney will “do it in a way that doesn’t create guest experience issues or consumer negative feedback ... and in Paris, we haven’t seen any.”’
Even if it starts out mild, as soon as they can push it harder they will. Lighting Lane was original not that expensive and now the pricing is out of control.
People are already mad
“So basically Disney’s CFO just spilled: They’re testing Uber-style surge pricing for Disneyland tickets in Paris, with US parks next. Buy early? Cheap. Wait? Pay more for the same day. Because nothing says “magic” like getting fleeced in real-time. 💸 #DisneySurge” - Fernando
“The thing about being screwed by airlines is people are gonna have to fly no matter what. Nobody has to go to Disney. Customer trust is hard to regain once it’s lost.” -meggyinabasket
“Because the Disney “Experience” didn’t already have enough stress involved… now you need fomo over ticket price surges if you don’t get those tickets early enough.
Disney needs to invest in what they offer guests again.”- idonnowhatoput
“Great, now Mickey’s gonna surge-price you like Uber.” -StudyGuides.com
“Disney Corp. doing everything they can over the past several weeks to be the supreme douchebag corporation in the known universe” - Matt Diamond
This is all about making money and their stock has been in freefall for days. This news did nothing to boost it, and it’s actually lower than yesterday.
Disney needs to start making choices for customers again if they want dividends for shareholders.