Today is a BIG day for The Walt Disney Company.

Cinderella Castle

Today marks the FIRST quarterly earnings report and call since Bob Iger returned as CEO of the company (although note Bob Chapek was still the CEO for part of this fiscal quarter). The earnings call lets us know how the company is doing overall. We recently learned that Disney+ lost subscribers globally over the past quarter, but how are Disney’s Parks doing? 

During the last quarterly earnings call, Disney shared that parks revenue was at $7.4 billion during Q4 2022, an increase from the previous quarter. That was despite some pretty significant losses due to Hurricane Ian that directly impacted operations at Disney World.

Flooding from Hurricane Ian at a Disney World construction site

During the most recent earnings call, Disney reported the revenue for Parks & Experiences in Q1 2023 was $8.7 billion, an increase of 21%. The company also reported that segment operating income (the difference between net revenue and operating expenses) increased 25% to $3.1 billion.

According to the earnings report, “higher operating results for the quarter reflected increases at our domestic parks and experiences and, to a lesser extent, our international parks and resorts.”

Parks revenue is up

Disney cites the income growth is due to “higher volumes and increased guest spending, partially offset by cost inflation, higher operations support costs and increased costs for new guest offerings.” The report also cited that Genie+ and Lightning Lane contributed to the increase in guest spending.

Genie+ and Lightning Lane helped fuel more guest spending

Domestically, this growth was achieved by purposely reducing capacity at the parks, thanks to the park pass reservation system. On January 1st, 2022, Disney’s domestic revenue was $4.8 billion — at the end of the year, on December 31st, 2022, the revenue was up 27% to a little over $6 billion.

Overall, Disney has seen park attendance at both Disney World and Disneyland already pacing above the prior year, and it is expected to continue.

Domestic Disney Parks revenue is up

The increase in revenue for international parks was due to “growth at Disneyland Paris and higher royalties from Tokyo Disney Resort, partially offset by a decrease at Shanghai Disney Resort.” Higher operating results at Disneyland Paris stemmed from more guests in the parks plus more guest spending, but “offset partially offset by a loss on the disposal of our ownership interest in Villages Nature, increased costs for new guest offerings and cost inflation.”

Tokyo Disney Sea

There was a decrease at Shanghai Disney Resort, though, due to lower guest attendance as a result of the park’s closures due to COVID-19 policies.

We’ll be covering everything from Disney’s Q1 2023 earnings call, so stay tuned to DFB for more.

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