Screamscape and WDWMagic are reporting Disney could roll out paid parking at its resorts in the coming weeks. No word on exact pricing possible yet.
While I'm probably in the minority I think this makes perfect sense. Here's why.
More people are taking advantage of low cost car rentals to drive to WDW from the airport. This means more people using the road network that is heavily used for bus travel. This means longer times for buses to get from point A to B, additional wear and tear on the roads, and the necessity to build more lanes and more parking at the parks. The hotels are designed to keep guests on site and going to the parks. It's a money machine guests staying in Disney Hotels eating Disney food, buying Disney merchandise, going to Disney parks. Reality, guests now see Universal as an appealing place to visit in addition to Disney parks. If guests are driving to Universal they aren't staying on property and Disney is sees that as lost revenue, longer stays at the hotels meaning less people that can book them which leads to higher prices because demand is higher, this is seen as a negative to guests trying to book hotels etc. Also, this puts wear and tear on the roads and requires etc. Those are investments are zero income generating. Plus take into account nonguests lying about the reason they are at a hotel to take advantage of proximity to a desired place and it all makes sense to me.
To break it down.
More cars means:
1.more parking needed that doesn't generate income.
2. More maintenance on the roads.
3. Necessity for more lanes on the roads.
4. Longer travel delays on property for buses and cars alike.
5. More strain on existing nonvehicle transportation.
6. More employees needed to patrol parking and working parking lots.
7. Lost income due to traveling outside of WDW.
8. More hotel books driving up prices and putting people off going to Disney.
9. People "going to eat at X restaurant" but instead are going to park closer to desired park without having to deal with the end of day traffic etc.
10. Eliminate nonguests from using hotel pools.
None of us like that we're headed in this direction and many see it as another money grab, but given that all of the above are common occurrences that negatively affect Disney's income I see this as one of it's limited options in trying to combat the problems it's facing and get people think twice about taking advantage of the company.