Thanks to the increased attendance and activity at Disney parks, the entertainment giant’s park revenue had increased 99% in Q4 2021 compared to the previous year. But just like any other business, Disney is always looking for ways to increase its profits. Though Disney has no immediate plans for price changes at its parks, the company does consider decreasing the size of food portions it serves as a cost-cutting measure.
“I was talking to our parks senior team about things that we could do there,” said Disney CFO Christine McCarthy when asked how the parks were dealing with rising inflation during the company’s earnings call on Wednesday. “There are lots of things that are worth talking about. We can adjust suppliers. We can substitute products. We can cut portion size which is probably good for some people’s waistlines.”
McCarthy acknowledged that there are a number of ways to help lessen rising operation and production costs, noting that across-the-board price changes at Disney parks are unlikely at this time.
“We can look at pricing where necessary,” McCarthy said. “We aren’t going to go just straight across and increase prices. We’re going to try to get the algorithm right to cut where we can and not necessarily do things the same way. We’re producing technology to produce some of the operating costs. That gives us to absorb some inflation. We’re trying to use our heads here to come up with a way to kind of mitigate some of the challenges that we have.”
During the earnings call, Disney also talked about some of the park initiatives that are showing early signs of success. Those initiatives included the controversial add-on Genie+ service that gives visitors access to Lightning Lanes, a truncated queue that skips the wait on most rides.
According to Disney CEO Bob Chapek, nearly a third of guests at Walt Disney World Resort were upgrading to Genie+, which costs $15 per ticket per day at the said park. A lot of popular rides and attractions also have individual Lightning Lane passes, which can be bought separately from Genie+.