Disneyland To Manage Crowds with Upcoming Changes to Annual Pass Program, Disney CEO Says

from the OCRegister.com

Sunsetting the annual pass program was just the first of several steps Disneyland plans to take to enhance the guest experience, Disney CEO Bob Chapek says.

Disneyland plans to use changes to a new annual pass program and dynamic ticket pricing to help manage crowd levels when the Anaheim theme park reopens with attendance capacity restrictions following a yearlong coronavirus closure, according to Disney officials.

Sunsetting the annual pass program was just the first of several steps Disneyland plans to take to enhance the guest experience, Disney CEO Bob Chapek said this week during the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media and Telecommunications Conference.

“We’ve made some moves already, but we’re going to make further moves,” Chapek said during the conference.

Disneyland and Disney California Adventure are unlikely to return to full operation until spring or summer under COVID-19 health and safety reopening guidelines issued by the state. Disneyland stunned fans by canceling its annual passholder program in January and announcing that a new membership program will be unveiled at a later date.

The new membership program will allow Disneyland to better manage crowd levels, according to Chapek.

“We’re going to use that though in order to have an even better guest experience at Disneyland and really manage the crowd so that no matter what day you go to Disneyland you’re going to have an extraordinary experience,” Chapek said during the conference.

The eventual reopening of Disneyland and Disney California Adventure provide the opportunity for a “test case” combining Disney’s dynamic pricing model with artificially constrained capacity measures, according to Chapek.

Disneyland has recently expanded the use of a dynamic pricing model — charging more for tickets on busy weekends and holidays and less during the middle of the week. California theme parks will be required to cap attendance at 25% when they reopen in the least-restrictive yellow/minimal tier 4 of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Blueprint for a Safer Economy.

Disneyland plans to implement the dynamic pricing model “in a more profound and unlimited way” once the park reopens, Chapek said during the conference.

“Now we’ve got this test case where we’re artificially constraining the demand for our park,” Chapek said during the conference. “We’re getting pretty good at this supply-demand thing.”

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