Disney plans to launch dynamic pricing at its domestic theme parks as the company looks to boost incremental revenue, said chief financial officer Hugh Johnston.
“We’re actually investing in creating dynamic pricing. We’re doing it in Paris right now. We’ve been doing it for about a year. It’s off to a very good start. But we’re really going to make sure we optimize it before we bring it into the domestic parks. So that’s probably something that you won’t see this year, but you may see in subsequent years,” he said during a Q&A at the Wells Fargo TMT conference.
Asked if the airline pricing model is the best way to think about the rollout, Johnston said, “I’d like to not think about it that way, to be honest with you. But yes, similar.
“You know, we already do it in the hotels to some degree. So this is basically just bringing it in the parks. But done in a way that that obviously doesn’t create guest experience issues or consumer negative feedback, and all of that. And so far, in Paris, we haven’t seen any.”
He noted that Disney park-goers tends “to be at the higher-income deciles, and those consumers continue to do well. So we certainly broadly feel good about where the consumer is.”
Dynamic pricing is a strategy where the price of a product or service fluctuates real-time based on market conditions.
Meanwhile, the parks are focused on generating extra cash by tweaking the price of ticket, food and beverages and merchandise and with ancillary services like Lightning Lane and Private VIP Tours and other customized experiences. “The team has really gotten increasingly better at getting that yield up, particularly in years where we’re not adding capacity from new attractions,” he said.
“The thing you have to keep in mind with the parks is we tend domestically to run at pretty high capacity utilization. So when we’re adding new attractions, you’ll see attendance jumps. But when we’re not in a year where we’re adding something new, we’re basically going to be about level. [So] You’ll see balance attendance growth with pricing growth, but, in any given year, it could be more geared towards one versus the other.”
Disney reported earnings last week. Operating income at Experiences grew 8% to $10 billion dollars for Disney’s fiscal 2025 ended in September, and 9% for the fourth quarter. Attendance was down 1% for the year and 2% for the fourth quarter.
In one of its latest expansions, the company is at work adding two new attractions to its Disneyland Avengers Campus, that will double its size. Construction is underway at Avengers Infinity Defense — “Suit up for a multi-world adventure experience to stop King Thanos from wreaking havoc across worlds. Travel to iconic locations like Asgard, Wakanda and New York City, and face King Thanos himself,” read a post to the park’s blog.
And at Stark Flight Lab, “Sit in 2-person pods, deploy to a test station and get whirled around in a simulated flight by a robot arm. Mr. Tony Stark will join you for the ride!”
