Crazy thought: what if theme parks aren’t the major family destinations they used to be?
CAVEAT: one slow 4th of July is not enough data to make a determination one way or another…so this take is coming in hot.
But the world is smaller now. Transportation is easier, there are more lodging options than ever, and planning a vacation takes a couple of hours of using Google. You can travel anywhere in the world you want with much fewer barriers than the generation that grew up using Disney and Universal vacations as religious pilgrimages.
There’s also not a lot of Instagram value in the theme parks. A picture of Hogwarts or Cinderella Castle looks good on a feed—once. Not worth much without some pictures of the Eiffel Tower, Waikiki Beach, One Vanderbilt, the Taj Mahal, the Colisseum, etc. to supplement that. And that’s important to the generation that currently has the most spending power in the tourism space.
The major draw to a theme park is the rides…which are just becoming less and less impressive. 20 years ago, Soarin’ was a technical marvel…now you can ride an equivalent in Vancouver, Niagara Falls, and a whole bunch of other accessible tourist spots. Ride tech has even become less novel within the parks themselves; Spider-Man is arguably still the standard for theme park dark rides because the tech hasn’t been significantly improved upon in over 20 years…the newest rides today are rolling out different iterations of the same concept of motion vehicle riding past a 3-D screen. The most unique ride experience you can get comes on a roller coaster due to the sheer variety in design…but Velocicoaster and Hulk, great as they are, have suitable equivalents at regional parks across the world.
The parks still clearly appeal to a massive population…but is this the population that needs to take a week off to visit while their kids are off school? Or is it a population of people who now work from home, don’t have to adhere to school schedules, and largely live within a short distance that makes making a special visit to walk through a tribute store or try a new drink doable? Aka, people who will flock to the parks on a cool weather, low-price day while they have better things to do on major holidays? With how rapidly Florida has grown in the last three years, are we sure Annual Passholders aren’t making up a majority of the parks’ attendance any given day? Probably not, but the population is growing enough that the state could feasibly support that.