Is Disney Right About Epic Universe?

For at least the third time in calendar 2024, a Disney executive just stated that Universal Epic Universe isn’t a threat.

Instead, Disney officials have pointedly argued that the new park will, if anything, increase Walt Disney World attendance in 2025.

Could that possibly be true? Is Disney right about Epic Universe helping Walt Disney World? Let’s discuss what we know.

Both Things Can Be True

Here are two statements that I’m confident are true.

The first is that if Walt Disney World didn’t exist, we wouldn’t have a Universal Studios theme park in Orlando, Florida.

Disney is the alpha and omega of all tourism in Central Florida.

This place was swampland before Walt Disney World, and while we’d have some industry today, it definitely wouldn’t be the same.

Without Walt Disney World, Central Florida would have evolved much differently, and it certainly wouldn’t claim anything approaching 74 million tourists.

I’m skeptical the area would even claim 7.4 million tourists without Disney. It’s the biggest theme park in the world.

Other entertainment options like SeaWorld Orlando and Universal Orlando Resort arrived on the scene later.

The goal of both enterprises was to take advantage of the tourism benefits of being near Walt Disney World.

No informed person would seriously argue against this singular truth of Central Florida tourism.

Conversely, Universal Epic Universe adds a new level of intrigue to the constant struggle between Disney and Comcast.

As the owner of NBCUniversal, Comcast signed off on Epic Universe as a means of fundamentally altering consumer behavior.

Currently, many guests view Universal Orlando Resort as a two- or three-day theme park.

With the arrival of Epic Universe, Comcast hopes to change that number to four or five days.

While that may not sound like much, it’s a 40-67 percent expansion in tourist behavior.

Importantly, when guests stay four or five nights at Universal, they have less vacation time to spend at Disney.

Therein lies the debate regarding how much Universal negatively impacts Disney.

Can We Trust Disney Projections?

Disney officials indicate that they’ve studied history in projecting crowds next year.

Well, that’s only partially accurate. As you know, Disney sells theme park packages well ahead of time.

In fact, you can already purchase them for the holidays…of 2025! This approach provides Disney with plenty of knowledge.

So, the Disney Experiences division already knows how strong its attendance will be during the summer of 2025.

That’s the time when Epic Universe officially opens to the public, and Disney indicates that Walt Disney World is selling well.

Now, you may wonder how much to trust Disney about these things. I appreciate your cynicism.

However, when Disney makes statements on its earning calls, the SEC expects transparency.

Disney officials would come under fire if government officials discovered that the company had lied about its projections.

Effectively, Disney has nothing to gain and plenty to lose by misleading investors on this topic.

Therefore, we can safely assume that Disney thinks its summer numbers look good at Walt Disney World.

Then, we have the matter of history. After all, this isn’t the first time that a competitor has debuted in Orlando.

In fact, SeaWorld Orlando showed up just two years after Disney World! Then, we had the big one in 1990…

Can We Trust History?

That’s the year that Universal Studios Florida opened, becoming the second major competitor to Disney in Central Florida.

Disney officials at the time wanted to get ahead of this story and quickly posted data to show that competition is often overstated.

Here’s a quote from the Orlando Sentinel from July 19^th, 1990:

“WALT DISNEY World officials said Wednesday that attendance at the Disney-MGM Studios Theme Park was up 20 percent for the two months ended June 30 compared with the same period a year earlier – its first 60 days in operation.

“The 1990 two-month period saw the opening of a rival attraction, Universal Studios Florida, which had its grand opening June 7.

“Disney also said its studio tour set a one-day summer attendance record July 3, when 35,529 guests passed through the turnstiles.”

So, that’s Disney executives gloating that not only did attendance not drop but Walt Disney World had its biggest summer day ever.

There’s a second part to this story, though. In November 1994, the Orlando Sentinel reported the following:

“Annual attendance at Walt Disney World has dropped by nearly 5 million visitors since 1990, according to figures obtained by The Orlando Sentinel, and now Disney is preparing a nationwide advertising blitz to turn the trend around.

“Disney executives blame the slide on a sluggish European economy, uncertainty over the economy at home and crimes against tourists in Florida.

“But observers, both inside and outside the company, suggest something else may be contributing to the problem: Many vacationers simply think Disney’s prices are too high.”

That sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Still, the point remains that Disney attendance did gradually erode for a time after a competing park opened.

Other Historical Examples

Then again, Universal Studios Florida wasn’t exactly popular at first.

That park claimed only 6.9 million tourists during its first full year. Contrast that to Disney World’s “disappointing” 28 million.

We can track a similar example when Universal’s Islands of Adventure debuted in 1999.

During that park’s first full year of operation in 2000, it claimed a modest 6 million guests.

If anything, Islands of Adventure hurt Universal Studios Florida, whose attendance stagnated at 8.1 million.

Meanwhile, three of Walt Disney World’s four theme parks increased their attendance to a total of 43 million.

That’s the underlying theme in this discussion. Disney’s ups and downs don’t appear connected to anything its competitors do.

Instead, Disney parks appear more susceptible to societal trends like a struggling economy.

In the 1990 example, the Gulf War conflict definitely set back the economy, providing fewer Americans with disposable income.

Of course, you may argue that the biggest threat to Disney World wouldn’t come until later…and I’d agree with you!

One Other Important Comparison…

Everything changed when Universal unveiled The Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

That occurred in June 2010. So, let’s examine 2011 for a more recent example.

During that year, whose TEACOM report remains available online, all four Walt Disney World theme parks ticked up in attendance.

Overall, the four parks claimed 47.45 million tourists as opposed to 47.09 million the previous year.

So, we’re not talking about a huge change, but Universal’s overnight success caused no clear impact.

We can still tell it happened because the two Universal parks increased to 13.72 million after having 11.87 million in 2010.

That stat doesn’t highlight what Universal accomplished, though.

During 2009, the year before Harry Potter Land, the park managed only 9.9 million.

Yes, Potter boosted Universal’s overall attendance by nearly 40 percent in just two years…yet it had no impact on Disney.

Thus, when Disney officials say that they don’t expect Epic Universe to hurt Walt Disney World, that’s the logic.

The counterpoint is that Epic Universe is unlike anything Universal has ever tried before in terms of scale and, presumably, quality.

So, this could be an outlier, something we’ve never seen before.

Until tangible data shows otherwise, I’m inclined to believe Disney is right about Epic Universe, though.

The new park will gradually help Universal Studios, but I don’t expect it to hurt Walt Disney World.

That fact probably won’t stop some people from claiming that it does, though.

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