While summer is typically known for drawing huge crowds to Disneyland in California, reports of the park appearing to be emptier than usual surfaced in early July. This was despite the opening of the new Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge land. During a recent earnings call, Disney CEO Bob Iger commented on the drop in park attendance and the impact of Galaxy’s Edge, Yahoo Finance reports.
"There was tremendous concern in the marketplace that there was going to be huge crowding when we open Galaxy's Edge. And so some people stayed away just because they expected that it would not be a great guest experience. At the same time that was going on all the local hotels in the region, expecting a huge influx of visitation raise their prices. So, it's simply got more expensive to come stay in Anaheim."
According to Disney, attendance at the company’s domestic parks was down 3% in the third quarter.
According to him, expectations of overcrowding likely caused guests to reconsider their vacations. Iger claimed, “Some people stayed away just because they expected that it would not be a great guest experience.” Another factor, he theorized, was the increase in cost associated with visiting Disneyland. Since local hotels expected a “huge influx” of visitors, many of them raised their prices in response. “So, it simply got more expensive to come stay in Anaheim,” he said. “In addition to that, we raised our prices, we brought our daily price up, so if you think about local visitation we brought the price of a one-day ticket up substantially from a year ago.” He also mentioned that Galaxy’s Edge opened with only one ride, with another ride set to open next year. - NY POST
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