Making a Disney vacation a bit more affordable

Disney (DIS) recently released its third quarter earnings, illuminating how its many different units operated for the quarter, including theme parks, giving key insight into the state of the consumer.

University of Central Florida Rosen College of Hospitality Management assistant professor Carissa Baker joins Wealth! to give insight into Disney's theme park price hikes Baker reacts to comments made by Disney CFO Hugh Johnston in an interview with Yahoo Finance over the state of the theme park unit:

"I was really interested by him mentioning the fact that consumers maybe that are lower-income or middle-income are still kind of having stress because of the current state of the economy and inflation. But that more higher income buyers in general are looking towards those international parks."

She continues to say that this trend doesn't mean it will be cheaper, but that there are still some ways... that you can kind of find a way to make it a little bit cheaper, depending on when you go during the year and who you use to travel and things like that."

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This post was written by Nicholas Jacobino

Video Transcript

Planning that long awaited Disney vacation for you and the family.

Well, this morning's Disney earnings could give consumers a hint into how much you may be spending while at one of the company's many theme parks here to help break it down.

We've got Carissa Baker who is an assistant professor of theme park and attraction management at the University of Central Florida.

Great to have you and thanks so much for hopping on Yahoo Finance with us.

So we do know that theme parks they're not cheap and there are a lot of changing prices that consumers need to be aware of.

You've been also looking across the same earnings we have.

What did you take out about these theme parks and the experiences that people are coming to expect?

Yeah, absolutely.

Great to be here.

Thank you for having me on.

Um So the the call today was not at all surprising.

Um I was kind of expecting that there would still be kind of steady growth or at least, you know, where we've, where we've been in the past and that's exactly what we saw today.

Um What that means for for your viewers is that um the Disney parks and, and the theme park industry in general are going to continue to build exciting new attractions.

But I don't think that they are getting any cheaper and I think that we saw that with today's call as well.

Well, so earlier this morning, Disney CFO Hugh Johnson joined Yahoo Finance and was asked his take on the current state of Disney theme parks would love to hear your reaction to what he had to say.

On the other side, the, the business is a little bit different construction than it was in the past right now.

40% of the business is not domestic parks, it's either consumer products or international parks.

Now, within that, that remaining 60% that's domestics parks.

Uh we had attendance flat and we actually saw per caps up a little bit.

And so Karissa, I just wanna get your reaction here and what consumers should be anticipating even as they're making their way to a park uh in whatever corner of the world.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I was really interested by him mentioning the fact that um consumers maybe that are lower income or middle income are still kind of having stress because of the the current state of the economy and inflation.

But that more um higher income buyers in general are, are looking towards those international parks.

So, um I would say for, for all of us, this does mean that it's not necessarily going to be cheaper, but that there are still some way.

And I think we've seen this in the past that you can kind of find a way to make it a little bit cheaper, depending on when you go during the year and, um, who you use to travel and, and things like that.

I do think there are still a lot of options for, for the average person who really desires to have that theme park vacation.

Ok. With the time we have left, let's dive further into that because you've probably showed up in the results of Disney over the past few quarters here, given that you've visited every single Disney theme park this year.

Is that right?

So how, how have you been able to kind of hack your own spending habits and make sure that it does remain affordable?

Right.

So, yes, so I have visited all, um, 12 Disney Parks as well.

You know, all six of the Disney resorts in the world within the last 12 months.

And, um, you know, I'm, I'm a college professor and my husband's a teacher.

So we are not the upper income bracket, but we really love theme parks.

And so we've really done it a lot based on timing.

So the theme park industry, just like the hotel industry, travel industry is very much dynamic pricing.

So if, if you can find a way to, to arrange your schedule so that you can go during those parts of the year where they are a little expensive or less expensive.

They're offering cuts, um, discounts, um, vacation packages, travel packages, things like that.

That's really what we've had to do to kind of hack it so that I could go to all of these parks within a 12 month period.

All right, we're gonna be keeping tabs on this, uh, because they are gonna be a lot of people.

I imagine lighting up this video trying to figure out how they can save money on their trip as well.

Clarissa Baker, UCF Rosen College of Hospitality Management, assistant professor.

Thank you so much for taking the time here.

Thanks Fred.