Niles: An ‘unfavorable’ problem for Disneyland, Six Flags

This might upset some Disneyland fans, but, too bad. Theme parks are not places that people who do not work there should be visiting every day. They should be designed and used as extraordinary spaces and not reduced to venues for the activities of everyday life.

Executives at both Disney and Six Flags recently alluded to the problems created when customers visit theme parks too often. In his company’s most recent quarterly earnings call, Six Flags CEO Selim Bassoul bemoaned that Six Flags theme parks in recent years had become “a cheap daycare center for teenagers during breaks and the summers.”

Some fans balked at that description, taking it as an insult to loyal visitors. But Bassoul didn’t take nearly as much heat online as Disney did after its most recent quarterly financial report blamed “an unfavorable attendance mix” at the Disneyland Resort for partially offsetting an increase in ticket revenue across Disney’s theme parks.

Many Disneyland Magic Key holders did not take well to having their presence at the resort being dismissed in any way as “unfavorable.” But it is undeniable that annual passholders, on average, spend less per visit to the parks than people who visit using daily tickets.

Of course, many annual passholders end up spending far more in total at the parks over the course of the year than the average daily visitor does. That’s why many parks work hard to convert daily visitors into passholders. But when so many people buy passes that they start to crowd out infrequent visitors, the numbers don’t add up as well for the parks. Bassoul acknowledged that Six Flags hurt itself financially by discounting so heavily in the past, making it especially attractive to young people and others who did not have extra money to spend on food, souvenirs and upcharges that competitors such as Disney can sell with ease.

In a capital-intensive business such as theme parks, cheap becomes self-fulfilling. No one credibly can describe Disney as being cheap to visit, but the less that Disney makes at the front gate from passholders, the more the company is going to make that up with charges inside the parks, such as switching Fastpass to paid Lightning Lanes.