Disney World rival Legoland may be the next popular institution to implement a major change to its pricing that consumers have recently been extremely resistant to.
Scott O’Neil, the CEO of Merlin Entertainments, which owns Legoland, Madame Tussauds and Peppa Pig Theme Park, just revealed in a new interview with The Financial Times that his company is currently developing a dynamic pricing model, better known as “surge pricing,” for its attractions. Dynamic pricing is when the price of a product/service is adjusted based on the time of day and other factors such as consumer habits and demographics.
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O’Neil claims in the interview that the change will make customers pay more for tickets at its attractions during peak summer weekends than on rainy weekends in the off-season. The change will take place at its top 20 global attractions by the end of the year, and in major U.S. attractions next year.
“If [an attraction] is in the UK, it’s August peak holiday season, sunny and a Saturday, you would expect to pay more than if it was a rainy Tuesday in March,” said O’Neil.
O’Neil also revealed during the interview that the dynamic pricing model will help the company make up for the money it lost during the Covid pandemic as it experienced a decrease in foot traffic at its attractions.
In a recent report of the company's performance, Merlin Entertainments reveals that it's seeing a normalization of consumer demand at its theme parks.
“With no material COVID-19 related attraction closures remaining, our operational footprint has now largely returned to pre-pandemic levels,” said the company in the report.
If Legoland implements dynamic pricing, it won’t be the first major theme park to do so. Since 2018, Disney has used dynamic pricing to charge more money for tickets at its theme parks on busy days and less for days with lower attendance. Disneyland and Disney World are notorious for increasing their ticket prices on weekends and holidays to help push fans to visit the attractions on days with decreased demand.
The idea of dynamic pricing has recently caused an uproar amongst consumers. Fast-food chain Wendy’s (WEN) recently angered its customers last month after its CEO Kirk Tanner revealed during an earnings call in February that the company “will begin testing more enhanced features like dynamic pricing” as early as 2025.
Social media users called Wendy’s “greedy” for its plan to test out the change and even threatened to boycott its restaurants.
After facing backlash, Wendy’s later claimed in a statement that its CEO’s comments about dynamic pricing during the earnings call was “misconstrued.”
“This was misconstrued in some media reports as an intent to raise prices when demand is highest at our restaurants,” reads the statement. “We have no plans to do that and would not raise prices when our customers are visiting us most.”
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