Fifteen grand for dinner at Disneyland? Who would even think about paying that?
But there it was – news all over the Internet and TV last week about Disneyland’s new 21 Royal private experience, where for $15,000, you and 11 friends can have drinks and dinner in what used to be called the Disneyland Dream Suite (yes, it’s being renamed). It’s a long way from a corn dog on Main Street USA.
It’s a trick worthy of the sorcerer Yensid himself – Disney trying to position itself as a luxury brand to the wealthy, while remaining an accessible, mass-market brand to the rest of us. But when your entire company is based on delivering “magic,” you get pretty good at making seemingly impossible things happen.
Disneyland’s always drawn Hollywood stars; being part of a company that produces countless movies and TV shows certainly helps. But Disney has spent more than 60 years promoting visits to its parks as a rite of childhood. Stars’ kids want to go to Disneyland, too, so their famous parents dutifully bring them.
Disney accommodates them with VIP tour hosts, hotel suites and sometimes even access to Club 33. Those perks are available to the wealthy that aren’t famous, as well. But Disney in recent years has shown that it’s not content to wait for children to drag their rich parents to its theme parks. It wants those wealthy consumers planning Disney trips for themselves.
That’s why Disneyland is offering a $15,000 private experience that includeds a luxury meal and building a new luxury hotel. That’s why it expanded Club 33 and created flamboyant theme suites atop the Disneyland Hotel. And that’s why Walt Disney World built tropical bungalows on the lagoon in front of its Magic Kingdom, for which it charges more than $2,200 a night.
Like Willie Sutton hitting a bank, Disney’s just going where the money is. According to a Pew Research Center study, 49 percent of U.S. income went to upper-income households in 2014, up from 29 percent in 1970. The middle class is shrinking, as the numbers of Americans who are rich – or poor – is growing. The percentage of Americans defined as middle income dropped to 50 percent in 2015 from 61 percent in 1971, according to the same report.
If you’re a middle-class tourist attraction, you’ve got a tough choice: Accept a shrinking market for your product, or find a way to go after more wealthy tourists.
Disney chose the second option. But to do that without leaving its core market behind, Disney needed to expand the number of price points it offers to its customers.
That’s why today you can buy annual passes that range from $329 for the Southern California Select pass at Disneyland to $1,439 for a Premiere Passport that gets you into all the Disneyland and Disney World parks, every day of the year. Disneyland also offers a monthly payment plan that makes the SoCal Select pass cost just $19.50 a month, after a $95 down payment. That helps makes the park accessible to middle class visitors even as Disney piles on the extras for the wealthy.
And that’s the magic of Disney’s trick. Rather than escape to some ritzy private island, the more wealthy tourists are coming to Disney’s theme parks, where they ride Splash Mountain with middle class visitors who still feel welcomed, despite all those luxury upgrades Disney hides behind closed doors.
Even as Americans become more divided by income, theme parks provide us a much-needed common ground.
Robert Niles is the founder and editor of ThemeParkInsider.com. Follow him on Twitter @ThemePark.
