Yesterday morning, we were all up way too early to get to Cleveland Hopkins in time to navigate unbelievable security lines without missing our 8:40 AM flight. When they say flights are fuller than ever, I kind of believe them.
We arrived in Orlando around noon, picked up our rental car, and drove to a smallish city about halfway between Orlando and Tampa to have lunch with my mom’s parents (they live near Tampa about six months out of the year). It was nice, with all the expected questions about how school is going for my brothers and me, how I liked Spain, what we got for Christmas… and all too soon, lunch was over and we parted ways. I don’t see my grandparents often enough, but don’t know how to change that.
I drove the minivan back to Orlando and we checked into the hotel. For the rest of the day, we just hung around the resort; my brothers and I each brought our computers and have been exploiting the free wireless to no end, and we also fit in a few games of cards and TV time. Always a fan of that nice, forced, family-interaction time.
This morning, we had a quick bite to eat in our room before heading out to the Universal Studios complex. My god, the admission prices are ridiculous. Universal is now made up of two parks: Islands of Adventure, on the amusement park end of the spectrum, and Universal Studios, on the theme park end of the spectrum. Admission to one park for the day is $67, while for both it’s “only” $77.
The economics of theme parks are mind boggling to me. Although it costs Universal not a penny extra to allow admission to both parks (you can’t be at both parks at the same time, so they’re not incurring any extra operating costs by allowing you into each of them sequentially), they very wisely charge an extra $10 for admission to both. The price is high enough that they make 15% more income and even higher margins, but low enough that the consumer is stupid not to get “100%” more experience.
But that’s just the beginning. We bought the double passes, and got to our first roller coaster. At ten in the morning, the line was already 75 minutes long. But Universal has people in a hurry covered: the “Express Plus Pass.” For a remarkable extra $50 (65% of admission/65% more income for the park), it is possible for any regular ticket-holder to buy access to an expedited line at every ride in the complex, decreasing wait times to no more than 15 minutes on most rides.
And what is the extra cost to Universal for this “service”? Well, they had a one-time installation charge to reconfigure the queues for two separate lines, and they must pay one extra employee per ride to monitor the express line, but other than that? Nothing. The costs of providing the “service” are paid for in extra time spent in already-long lines by the already-gouged regular ticket-holders. Price discrimination at its finest.
Comments 1
Excellent post. I think you should do more econ-themed posts, to educate all of us less-informed consumers. Like on the economics of organized religion =) There was an excellent article about that a few years ago in the NY Times - I’ll see if I can find it and send it to you.
Posted 27 December 2006 at 7:46 pm ¶