These people have made consuming an experience a large part of their identity. That's it. They consume the parks. They consume the food. They consume the experiences. They even consume cheap clothes on amazon that match the general colors of their favorite cartoon characters (it's called disneybounding, look it up).
You're not wrong, but isn't "consumption" the entire point of every vacation ever? Do you do anything other than consume when you, say, go for a cruise? Road trip across the country? Go be a tourist in a city abroad? What could you possibly get out of a vacation other than "consuming"?
Consumer-brain people can't help but project their own desire to consume consume consume.
You state that there's a truck. Those are expensive. Is that a requirement? Can I just use my car or take the train?
You imply the beer is overpriced. Is expensive beer a requirement? Is a box of the cheapest beer they sell at the market not acceptable?
You imply that I have to buy the gear to go. Is buying new gear a requirement? Yes, I have bought gear at one time, but I have had it for a long time.
You imply that the sauna requires a "fitness club membership". Is a fitness club membership a requirement? Can I not use the one in the cabin? Or what about the one I built in my home?
Trucks, expensive beer, buying new gear, even paying a subscription for a "fitness club" are all YOUR consumer mindset, probably American. Yes, consumption is happening, but your own projection of what is wanted vs what is required says a lot about your wants more than what you're trying to say about the person you're replying to.
> Lifestyle tat for the outdoorsy set is an absolutely massive market that dwarfs the entire Disney empire.
I'm sure it is.
Just because other people wish to consume the luxury gorp core outdoorsy market doesn't mean that I am obligated to. I just want to be outside, exploring the terrain and feeling the air and relaxing.
Yes, you can be reductionist about the word "consume", but what I am describing is a far cry from a highly curated, disneyland experience, where you buy fried food and take a picture with a man in a mascot costume.
Depends how far you want to go with reducing things down to consumption. Does going somewhere to hike, climb, or camp count as just consumption? I can't stand going somewhere to only look at things or eat things, it gets very boring very quickly, but I like meeting people and going on adventures, exploring nature in as physical way as possible regardless of viewpoint availability.
You can be reductionist about the word consume, but I think there's a far difference between exploring and engaging in the world around you. Engaging people, meeting them on mutual terms (and not just on your terms, as a "customer"), and engaging the world.
Versus multiple yearly curated luxury theme park vacations where you eat prepared fried food and go on prepared boat rides and take photos with people in mascot outfits and you're paying everyone to be nice and predictable to you.
I think a better question is how much people consume in general. There are plenty of people who replace their car every 2-3 years but that doesn't get nearly as much scorn and mockery.
Yes, consuming is an experience, and experience is one of the ideal things to do on vacation in particular.
Surely it's still legal to have just as many new and rewarding experiences, in a new or familiar environment for the same duration of time, and none of them are actual consumer activities.
It can be as fantastic as possible without doing any more significant or out-of-the ordinary consumption than otherwise.
If you can't get the most out of both plain experiences and dedicated consumption, any travel might not be as worthwhile as it could be.
Engaging with the world, with people, with experiences, and places is good! Yes, there is a consumptive element to it, but you can be reductionist about that all the way down.
It's a far cry from taking a vacation where, for the entire time, you are The Customer. Where you are paying for predictable catered experiences and food, where everyone is trying to serve you in some way.
While I agree somewhat with the descriptive aspect of your comment I think you assume a view of humans that is too atomic or individualistic as agenents. No doubt "these people" have "made" consuming a large part of their identity, but this is only half the story.
The reality in which many in the US and maybe the West generally (perhaps elsewhere too) is one in which one's life as an agent is constrained within the bounds of being a consumer. What I mean is people are habituated into expressing their agency as a consumer: Someone or thing offers you something, you "decide" to accept it or reject it. If you don't like what's being offered, you leverage your ability to consume as the means by which you exert power over the producer, i.e., "Make me an offer I like or I'll consumer elsewhere (if I can)".
So, of course people's identities are consumption centered. This is because is what reality is for peoples' everyday life, consumption choices. So people express who they are through the available consumption choices. Think about how people are marketed to, at least in the US. People are slammed with "Your choice" and "have it your way" and "be you" in advertising as if consuming a product is an expression of their respective identities.
Anyway, this is all just to say: The structure of society and the discourse that supports it plays a big role in constraining and guiding how people think and what choices people can even imagine are open to them when making decisions. So not all the responsibility or blame should be focused on individuals, but on large social structures, practices, and discourses.
> So, of course people's identities are consumption centered
> The structure of society and the discourse that supports it plays a big role in constraining and guiding how people think and what choices people can even imagine are open to them when making decisions. So not all the responsibility or blame should be focused on individuals, but on large social structures, practices, and discourses.
In my opinion, just by virtue of living in the developed world you're not going to be producing more than you consume. That's how the core works, it siphons from the periphery.
I can think of a million things I'd rather do with my kids. I don't understand why people continue to go to these parks. The experience is bad with or without the Disney adults.
There's nothing wrong with targeting a different ICP from who you were previously.
As a business you in fact have an incentive to target these kinds of identity-driven consumers as they are much more likely to spend more on average than others.
And Disney is shifting their entire GTM as a result, but frankly there is nothing wrong with that - consumer tastes change.
That said, it sounds like you are dismissive of Disney-fanatics when in reality everyone is hypertargeted by their specific subculture. Doesn't matter if your a Tater, a ranked MMO gamer, Boardgame addicts, fantasy football aficionado, CrossFit enthusiast, mechanical keyboard collector, etc.
I don't really care about Disney's business. The Disney adults, as people, are bleak. Take their money, who cares.
> That said, it sounds like you are dismissive of Disney-fanatics when in reality everyone is hypertargeted by their specific subculture. Doesn't matter if your a Tater, a ranked MMO gamer, Boardgame addict, fantasy football aficionado, CrossFit enthusiast, etc.
does everyone has to have a "specific subculture" that they consume? i feel like that way of looking at things is bleak. im a heavy fitness enthusiast and i hardly spend any money besides a basic gym membership and the cost of trail/camp permits
The reality is, to participate in any hobby you will have to expend significant amounts of dough, and invariably some people will spend more of their discretionary income on said hobby over others.
And businesses are businesses - be their your local small business bicycle shop or a mega-conglomerate like Disney - and as such will always optimize for those people who are open to spending a larger proportion on said hobby than the median consumer.
I'm sure if we all took a look at everyone else's hobbies and spending, we would find stuff which we would view as ridiculous consumption but the other person would view as valuable.
For example, I've been pretty competitive in powerlifting for several years (especially as I used to crosstrain in HS for wrestling and track&field) and unsurprisingly spending significantly more than other people getting personal training from coaches, buying IWF-certified barbells, Nike Romaleos, Titan bumper plates, etc. Someone who isn't into powerlifting would look at me as being weird (why not just go to a gym 2 times a week and call it a day?!?) but I derive utility from it.
As long as someone is able to afford their hobby without impacting their professional and personal lives, there is nothing wrong with it.
You also have to figure that most parents can't afford to take their kids to Disney as easily as they could just year or two ago, and may never be able to do so again.
A Disney holiday as a pre-teen or early childhood milestone was only true amongst a subset of middle class Americans during the 1960s-2000s.
Heck, the first time I visited Disney was during my high school graduation with the subsidized HS Disneyland grad trip which Disney created in order to create a monetizable nostalgic customer base that became 'Disney Adults'.
Most people globally never experienced that, and only really care about Disney from a teen or adult oriented lens.
A high earning single person household flying in from Beijing or a DINK household in NYC spending $1-2K at a Disney resort is more valuable and provides better margins than a household of 4 spending $600 on Disney (and most likely won't stay at the resort).
It's the same strategy the foreign Disney Experience properties (Paris, Hong Kong, Shanghai) and the Walt Disney cruises use as well.
You aren't a bad parent if you didn't take your family to Disneyworld - in fact they don't really want your money anymore.
>the first time I visited Disney was during my high school
Me too, but back when I started high school Disneyworld didn't yet exist, and by the time I got there the first phase was only about halfway built.
It was already too expensive for Florida natives though, but almost every Orlando resident could get special passbooks from places like their employer or church. My sweetheart's older brother had moved up there and set us up with a few days worth.
It was just plain designed to not only be expensive, but overpriced to boot :\
I'll still remember the second time we went to it a few years later after it was "complete." Still surrounded by swamp, there were no competitive attractions yet and to celebrate the completion they were going to shoot off fireworks for the first time, like the original in Anaheim was famous for every day.
It was a massive show, way over the top, after all it was Fourth of July, 1976, the Bicentennial of the founding of the USA :)
There is this pervasive cynical belief that anything adults like kids will dislike and vice versa it's important to remember that for the vast majority of history that hasn't been true. In the recent past people had to work very hard to create these define these social groups and sell products to/for them.
These social classes will collapse quicker than you think, you're seeing the final death throes with age-verification laws
Disney is also sort of stuck in a bad place. More human beings want to visit these parks than is physically, or at least safely, possible. They've implemented this entire virtual queuing system that absolutely sucks to use and experience and plan around but what the hell else are they supposed to do? Auction off rides? Use a lottery system?
It's not like you can just scale up the magic kingdom.
Disney theme parks are a scarce resource.
I loathe Disney but there's no such thing as the Disney park of 2000, today.
This is happening to a lot of tourism because there's just way more tourism today than 50 years ago. There are way more wealthy people who can just throw money at the problem of "I want to do <thing>". They will always be able to outcompete the normal family of yesteryear who got to experience magic on a budget.
Of course Disney doesn't want you to think about how they really wanted this to happen and worked towards this goal as they have sought more international revenue so it's partially their fault.
You can't scale up the Magic Kingdom, no. But Disney had a pattern going for a while where they opened a new Florida park every 10 years or so: 1971, 1982, 1989, 1998. That probably helped a lot. They've done some small expansions in the existing parks since then, but they're about 20 years behind in adding a new park. I think that's a huge part of the crowding issue now.
(Now Anaheim, there they're kind of hosed. No space to expand.)
Wait until these people learn about Disney's Secret Club 33. Membership is $100,000 not counting annual dues and the current waiting list is about 14 years. That's the only way into the unpublished tunnel that leads to the special underground rooms. Not even park security have access. The normies that know about it think it's just about drinking alcohol in the ground floor room.
I agree, I think it does simply make sense to cater to the customers with the money. If I were starting a business selling products or services to consumers directly, I wouldn't target a customer base that could only afford to buy it once or twice. It wouldn't matter why they have more money, being child free or being a software engineer from San Francisco, I would just figure out their demographic and target them.
That's actually a great point, and probably touches on the broader trend of chasing profits now at the cost of long term health. For what it's worth, the two Disney adult couples I know are both having kids and besides bluey everything they consume is Disney related.
Sorry, but I can't get out of my mind one of the Monty Python PC games depicting a crowd of faceless people all wearing Mickey Mouse ears. While I can't relate to voluntarily paying money to go consume a corporate theme park media experience, but it floats their steamboat then more power to them.