Disney beats expectations, attendance up at theme parks

I read a comment on one of the Disney blog Facebook pages saying something along the lines of "It's been slow all summer. They could just be making this up."

Same people who believe Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election.

I for one am very happy attendance is increasing again, in his last years Bob Iger seemed to be following the Kinzel method of growth (increase per cap spend + decreasing attendance.) There seems to be a nearly constant string of discounted room rates as of late, but they are clearly surgical. I was able to take advantage of a sale on room rates for the last 3 months of the year (Oct and Dec) where it seemed like every room was on sale. If you look for those rates now, less then a month later, you will see next to no discounted rates left, but rack rates are available for nearly every non DVC room. That tells me they had a target occupancy rate for that sale, and they met it. Thats just good inventory management and it’s still quite a feat for Disney to experience growth in attendance when every other theme park operator (including Universal) is experiencing decreased attendance.

The room discounting isn't any different from the pre-pandemic days. We just did a few nights at Coronado, and the net rate we paid was not less than any other year. Attendance strikes me as more evenly distributed than it used to be, which is to say it feels "standard" most days, and up or down from there seems like an anomaly. The lack of tourists coming from South America in particular is something you can feel. Europeans stand out, but you just don't see the big tour groups from Brazil that used to be a hallmark of Disney visits.