This market analysis examines how Walt Disney World has failed to appeal to adult audiences, losing business to competitors like Universal Studios. The objective is to bring more "adult" intellectual properties like Marvel into the parks to attract and retain older guests. Research found adults prefer Universal for its rides appealing to all ages. The report recommends Walt Disney World expand Marvel attractions, particularly at Epcot, and add more thrill rides to broaden their audience.

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A Market Analysis for
Walt Disney World Resort
Joanna Santos Lopes
Full Sail University
Project & Portfolio II: Business and Marketing
10/27/19

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This market analysis report looks at how Walt Disney World (WDW) has failed to hit the
mark with catering to their adult audience and in turn how this has caused them to lose business
to local competitors and how their guests’ excitement over new lands and rides has dropped. This
report also includes how WDW can begin to acquire this audience and keep them in the long run
while still catering to the families that they currently have.

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OBJECTIVE
Walt Disney World Resort (WDW) struggles with appealing to a general adult audience
due to the lack of “adult” IPs in their parks. Since WDW is marketed for families with younger
children, they struggle to bring in adults to experience their parks as opposed to competitors like
Universal Orlando Resort. WDW wants to bring in more adult IPs into their parks to cater to
older audiences. They don’t want to pay the cost to take out anything catered to families, but they
want to expand what they do have to keep those same families coming back as the children get
older.
Since Disney purchased Marvel back in 2009, they have yet to fully expand this IP into
either of their parks in the U.S. but are currently moving towards that with character meet and
greets, Guardians of the Galaxy: Mission Breakout, and they are currently constructing “Super
Hero HQ,” which is essentially Marvel land, in their California Adventure park in Anaheim, CA
along with their construction of the Guardians of the Galaxy coaster in EPCOT at WDW.
Furthering this expansion with a Marvel section of EPCOT would be in their best interest, seeing
as how EPCOT is referred to as the “adult” park. Fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU)
would enjoy hidden Marvel easter eggs, reminiscent of Hidden Mickeys, and references to the
MCU, but it would still cater to children since it would revolve around superheroes that children
love. Not only would this be good for WDW to cater to their adult audiences, but it would also
encourage families to visit EPCOT for a day and partake in the educational park of WDW.

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RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Searching personal blogs and travel blogs from the past 5 years, it shows that adults prefer
Universal Studios Orlando Resort (USO) over WDW for various reasons such as; rides for all
ages, not just children, and the areas can be loved and appreciated by adults too, as opposed to
adults walking around knowing it’s all supposed to be a fantasy for a small child. News outlets
don’t tend to report on how Disney doesn’t cater to adults in these ways, but it was much easier
to find information through park-goers themselves who have an online audience to share their
opinions with. Every blog writer is, of course, biased in their opinions which is a challenge to
overcome, but they are also the consumers that Disney is trying to bring in.
RESEARCH AND KEY FINDINGS
Walt Disney World Resort provides guests a magical vacation experience across 4 main
theme parks; Magic Kingdom, Hollywood Studios, EPCOT, and Animal Kingdom ("Magic
Kingdom Park Hours"). WDW’s target market is middle class families with one to two children,
this is the type of family they display in many of their advertisements (Wisel, 2017). Looking at
wait times across parks, it can be seen that Hollywood Studios has had a drop in their wait times
between 2015 and 2016 (Testa, 2016). Looking at today, even with the openings of Toy Story
Land and Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, expanding on an “adult” IP that was already in Hollywood
Studios, wait times still continue to drop over time, with the newest ride, Millennium Falcon:
Smuggler’s Run, being around an hour wait even on opening weekend. This is very bad for
Disney since rides that have been open for a few years such as Seven Dwarfs Mine Train at

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Magic Kingdom and Flight of Passage at Animal Kingdom get higher wait time daily than
Smuggler’s Run does on the weekends, WDW’s busiest time throughout the week.
This is an internal struggle for Disney because they anticipated huge crowds for the
opening of Galaxy’s Edge and got a fraction of what they were expecting. This went as far as
cast members block-out days for Galaxy’s Edge being lifted to encourage more people to go,
even if they were cast members who had already visited Batuu before. WDW took a huge hit
with Galaxy’s Edge and it suffering from low attendance but it also doesn’t come across as a
surprise as the land also failed when it opened in California (McGloin, 2019). WDW is trying to
appeal to their older audience but they are missing the mark in what their guests want to see and
experience in the parks.

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(Testa, 2016)
("Magic Kingdom Park Hours”)
(Wisel, 2017)
CONCLUSIONS
Right now, WDW is struggling to hit the mark on their adult audience. This means that
WDW is missing out on a chunk of the market that is instead going to their biggest competitor,
USO, who caters more to adults while still having kid-friendly aspects to their parks. WDW is in
a position where they need to stray away from their child and family audience a bit and appeal
more to the adults who may not want a day of fantasy. WDW is moving slightly towards this
with the construction of Super Hero HQ in California and the Tron rollercoaster in
Tomorrowland at Magic Kingdom; it is unlike anything else that WDW has to offer and it gives a

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sort of USO feeling with how big and thrilling the rollercoaster is going to be. Expanding their
rides into bigger thrill rides like this one and “lands” with more adult IPs will not only expand
their audience into the adults they aren’t currently grasping, but it will also keep the families they
have already acquired into coming back as their children get older because they will not feel that
they have outgrown WDW since there are attractions that cater to them as well.
RECOMMENDATIONS
WDW should expand the aspects of Marvel that they’re able to use into their WDW
parks, specifically at EPCOT since they have already started implementing Marvel into EPCOT
with the Guardians of the Galaxy coaster. They should also implement bigger roller coasters into
their parks to bring in an older audience and cater to the “in-between” age guests they have that
come with their families but get bored of all the kid-friendly attractions. WDW is perfectly
capable of implementing these things because they have the capital and the land to do so.
Implementing these things into their parks would make it even more of a go-to vacation spot in
Orlando and they could potentially take some of USO’s audience with these implementations
because they would cater to a wider audience. Planning and implementing these ideas into their
parks would take approximately 5-10 years to account for time to clear land, hire builders,
construct the land and attractions, and hire and train actors for meet-and-greets and general cast
members for the land and attractions. Further research should be done to see who are the most
popular Marvel characters that they can use because of their agreement with USO and have
discussions with USO about what can and cannot be done in either park.

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REFERENCES
Attendance drops at Disney's U.S. theme parks. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://
www.themeparkinsider.com/flume/201908/6933/.
Carrick. (2019, February 17). Why We Prefer Universal Orlando to Disney World. Retrieved
from https://travelbabbo.com/universal-orlando-disney-world/.
Hull. (2018, September 12). 5 Reasons Universal Studios Is Better Than Disney World for
Families. Retrieved from https://thepointsguy.com/guide/reasons-universal-studios-is-
better-than-disney-world-for-families/.
Investor Relations - Stock Information, Events, Reports, Financial Information, Shareholder
Information. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.thewaltdisneycompany.com/investor-
relations/.
Magic Kingdom Park Hours. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/
admission/#.
McGloin, M. (2019, September 23). Disney Fires Exec After Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge Failure.
Retrieved from https://cosmicbook.news/disney-fires-exec-star-wars-galaxys-edge.
Testa, L. (2016, July 29). Summer Crowd and Wait Time Trends at Disney World -
TouringPlans.com Blog. Retrieved from https://touringplans.com/blog/2016/07/29/
summer-crowd-and-wait-time-trends-at-disney-world/.
Wisel, C. (2017, November 25). The Ultimate Guide to Planning a Disney Vacation With the
Entire Family. Retrieved from https://www.travelandleisure.com/trip-ideas/disney-
vacations/family-tips-walt-disney-world.