It's looking like a great summer for theme parks, right?
Well....
There's this little hitch called a "recession" standing in the way. Stock market guru Warren Buffett said that we are already there. With gas at more than $4 a gallon for 89 octane at the station down my street, many U.S. families won't be able to afford as expensive a summer vacation as they might have in the past.
The tourism business is very sensitive to the nation's economic health. You can substitute cheaper food when prices go up and incomes do down, but you can't quit eating. You still need to pay mortgage or rent. But you can ditch the summer vacation. That would mean fewer trips to theme parks around the country.
In reality, most people don't completely abandon their summer get-aways. But, like with food, they do substitute.
Last week, the Orlando Sentinel rounded up all the usual experts and found they were expecting a slight decrease in the number of Americans planning to vacation by car or airplane this summer. An overall decrease only tells part of the story. A Michigan family still might plan to drive to a theme park this summer, but costs might steer them toward Cedar Point for a weekend instead of Walt Disney World for a week.
Yet, as Americans stay closer to home, international visitors are moving in. The weak dollar is making a U.S. vacation a bargain for European tourists, and many are booking trips to the Orlando area, as the Sentinel story reported.
So the Orlando parks can look to international business. And the regional parks can look to recapture the locals who might otherwise have gone to Orlando. In Southern California, as the parks lose some middle-class visitors, they gain upper-middle-class locals who would have otherwise gone to Vegas or Hawaii.
Ultimately, what will determine how well a park moves the turnstiles this summer is its quality. Which is as it should be. Got something new that people want to see? (Like Toy Story, or The Simpsons?) The visitors will come. The demographics of where they are coming from (Michigan or Manchester) might change, but the overall numbers will be there.
The park managers that need to worry are the ones that failed to offer anything fresh this year. This is going to be an especially bad year to sell potential visitors on nothing more than nostalgia. That's an experience that's just too easy to substitute.
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Economic downturns make economies more competitive, as discretionary income becomes scarce. That's why it is so important for theme parks to have new offerings this year, not just attractions and shows, but with dining, special events, tours and customer service.
Recession or not, gas prices are a real show stopper right now.
Gas prices do suck don't they. They will not however, get in the way of my escape from reality/leisure time. I get about 30 mpg in my vehicle, so skipping about one night out to dinner will take care of the extra money for gas, and I will still go to the park. I have a feeling that we may be paying out the a** for gas for a while, so might as well get used to it.
I've also found it interesting that some of the negative reviews left by foreign visitors have borne an eerie echo of my own opinions about at least Orlando, and often the other Sea World parks as well.
If the speculation about increased visits here from overseas turns out to be true, I'll be looking forward to more reading along these lines.
Happy travels.
I just got back from Orlando, and I'm already bored and ready for another trip. For the record, we took a group of eight and split the gas eight ways. We drove down from Ottawa, Ontario, and it cost each of us about $80, or $640 total, if I'm not mistaken.
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That being said, my wife works in the hotel industry and what those analysts are saying is that this summer and the year as a whole will be comparable to last year. Other studies have indicated that leisure travel will stay consistent. The middle class over the last several years has shown an increase in travel and number of vacations taken. I fit right in with that. I took several 5+ day weekend trips last year and I am doing the same this year. I think it is more likely that we will see a collapse next year.