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On The Walt Disney Company's most recent earnings call, Disney executives continue to praise the park pass reservation system - a system that is controversial among guests. From a company point of view, it allows Disney to better estimate the crowds in each park for any given day so they can be better staffed, and also gives them ability to price dynamically depending on demand, but at the price of reduced flexibility, spontaneity, and ability to plan restaurants with ease for guests.
And our continued focus on improving the guest experience through the use of our reservation system to purposely manage capacity versus simply increasing volume has the added benefit of improving yield and optimizing overall economics. So even while the average daily attendance at our domestic parks across the first three quarters of this fiscal year was slightly below 2019, we have delivered significantly higher revenue and operating income over that same time period. This approach also provides flexibility with levers we can adjust if demand were to shift.
As CEO Bob Chapek said in this earnings call, the reservation system allows them to change whatever factors they need in terms of ticket packaging.
As you know, everything we do in our parks is all about improving the guest experience. And part of that has to do with limiting capacity, but also about personalizing those experiences. So we believe we do have a lot of flexibility to shift, if our demand changes. Remember, we have a reservation system which now enables us essentially real time on the fly to change whatever factors we need in terms of our ticket packaging that we want where years ago we didn't have that.
About The Author
Ash Hales is a British Disney Parks writer and the voice behind Mickey From The UK. Based in the South of England, he's been visiting Disney Parks for over three decades and launched Mickey From The UK in 2017 to provide practical, straight-talking advice for British guests - without the American bias.
