Comments on: 70 Jobs Cut at Universal Orlando

By: stillhere

stillhere — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 02:01:14 +0000

Hey I don’t know if you all know Old Town is another amusement park in Kissimmee. It has rides, shops, food, and entertainment. It’s always free to park and free to enter property. They have great family value to their ride packages and/or all day ride bands. They have free events, and entertainment. You might want to check it out.

By: ryaninc

ryaninc — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 15:21:53 +0000

Yeah, we noticed the $3 parking charge last time we were there. We have annual passes, so it’s no big deal for us. But if we didn’t have them, we would definitely be going somewhere else for movies or whatever in the evenings.

And I agree, there has to be a better way to bring in more customers than raising prices and dropping services. SeaWorld lost the free beer, Universal raised parking prices. Very unfortunate.

And for those of us looking for jobs, all these job losses just mean I’ll have an even harder time finding employment. Sigh.

At least it’s getting warmer! :-)

By: Michelle Snow

Michelle Snow — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 20:15:05 +0000

I agree completely. If people have less money to spend, don’t charge them more to patronize your business.

I understand businesses are struggling, too, but there are other ways to try to offset the lower revenue.

As I pointed out – sure they’re charging $3 for after 6pm parking, and one might think that’s quick revenue, but between having to now pay people to staff the toll booths longer and the possibility of people now deciding to go elsewhere to avoid paying the $3, it just seems counterproductive.

Try cutting park hours or putting together specials. In slow tourist periods, they really need to do more to draw the local market and I think most of us won’t pay $3 just to park to go to CityWalk.

And don’t even get me started on the new downtown parking fees… LOL

But raising prices or assessing additional fees is extremely counterproductive. If people don’t have the money to go out in the first place, raising prices is only going to discourage them further.

By: Terry Howard

Terry Howard — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 14:42:35 +0000

I still think these park pricing changes and even our downtown parking rate adjustments show some kind of fundamental misunderstanding of basic economic principals. If demand is down, you either lower prices or cut supply to spur it. They certainly aren’t cutting hours, but instead they are raising prices. That is supposed to draw people out to the park, especially when the decreased demand is becoming people have less money to spend? Whoever made these decisions, personally, from me to you, you are a grade A moron.