(Disclaimer: I'm a millennial, as are my friends)
Whenever I see Orlando vacation pics of my friends on Facebook, 9/10 times it's Universal. Why? Potter.
I don't know where my friends were staying. I think that's part of a bigger trend of vacationing. People don't care about their hotels anymore. Hotels are a means to an end. People, including myself, would stay in a random person's spare bedroom if it meant a cheaper trip.
You’re 25. You don’t care about hotels now. There are plenty that do, and typically when they have more expendable cash. While people may not post about them, they aren’t going away. If you think the Epcot hotel or Star Wars hotel will be hurting for attendance, you’re wrong. And if you think either will cannibalize beach club or boardwalk, you’re also wrong. There’s a reason a four seasons was just built.
There is a demand.
Me, for example, values on-site. I’ve done an all star once. Never again. Way too school cafeteria and cheap. I do deluxes only (thanks to DVC). I’d rather go 1/2 as many times and stay at a nicer place.
Same with UOR. Stayed at sapphire and loved it, But never again. Only one of the deluxes for me because I value EP too much. Again, I’d rather go 1/2 as many times and stay at a nicer place.
And crashing at a friends house with my 2 kids and wife, driving and parking at parks and driving back home sounds like a whip to me. Again, I’d rather go higher end 1/2 the time than on the cheap twice as much.
You might not be the supply at your age, or ever, honestly. And more power to you. Having the “all I need is a bed” approach will save you untold amounts of money in your life. But for every 50 of you, all they need is 1 of me and they’ll make their nut.
One would think, but since TEA is the only measurement of attendance to go by, according to that more people are going to WDW and UOR than ever as of last year.
And that's not exactly how prices work. When attendance drops, they generally have to at least make price increases slower--there's a reason SWO and BGT are generally cheaper than WDW and UOR. If WDW and UOR were struggling to stay above water, they would start cutting awesome deals out the wazoo. Unfortunately, if TEA is to be believed, they have no reason to stop jacking up prices.
I think Disneyhead hit the nail on the...well...head.
The TEA hate is dumb and very immature. It’s as close to the truth as we’ll get and it’s accurate
enough. Anyone who disagrees with that, well- just insert the akkktually meme, because that’s who they are.
Universal (much like Mac OS vs windows) has always seemed to gain “market share”. Anytime you’re only 20% of the market (vs Disney), you will likely gain share of percentage, although usually not higher total numbers (as they both grow). But when UPR opens theme park 3, it’ll actually be of significant impact finally. And that’s where the numbers are going to get really interesting.
