Riviera Sales by the numbers (vs CCV) for 2019 - (December added 1/16/2020)

[sethschroeder]

Even with decreased attendance at Disneyland and constant attendance at WDW; profits went up due to increased spending, because prices went up, even with increased expenses for the Galaxy Edge opening. So it seems Disney is right, they can increase prices and increase revenues, they've not yet found their ceiling.

Here is the thing I will pay more if it means less people are coming. On the thread "whats wrong with WDW" I said my biggest issue is that they are raising rates, getting lower crowds, but now saying they want to do things to also increase crowds.

As far as the "ceiling" what "ceiling" are we talking about? I think many refer to that on this board as when less people will attend (not so much when Disney will make less money). I could be wrong though and misreading people's comments.

 

[RivShore]

Except that old resorts are way up with Riviera down vs Copper Creek a year ago.

Right, all resorts showed 11% growth (not including Aulani). I would think that's considered a pretty good year on year growth rate for the overall portfolio. Now this quarter we'll see how increased prices at old resorts and increased incentives at Riviera (and finally, it's pending opening) play into it.

 

[dmurf01]

Except that old resorts are way up with Riviera down vs Copper Creek a year ago.

I am curious where you have numbers to say that RIV was down vs CC a year ago. I reviewed all of the sales data from when CCV went on sale. CCV went on pre-sale in March 2017 and opened in July 2017 (about 4 month sales prior to opening). The total points for those 4 months were 172,466. RIV went on sale 9 months prior to opening and sold 379,980 points in the first four months. CCV did not reach selling 100k= points per month until Jan 2018 (10th month) where RIV did it in month 3 (June 2019). CCV didn't seem to start gaining good traction until Poly sales dried up. CCV sales are drying up however RIV sales numbers are higher than CCV was at the same point in time.

 

[wdwdaddy4life]

I am curious where you have numbers to say that RIV was down vs CC a year ago. I reviewed all of the sales data from when CCV went on sale. CCV went on pre-sale in March 2017 and opened in July 2017 (about 4 month sales prior to opening). The total points for those 4 months were 172,466. RIV went on sale 9 months prior to opening and sold 379,980 points in the first four months. CCV did not reach selling 100k= points per month until Jan 2018 (10th month) where RIV did it in month 3 (June 2019). CCV didn't seem to start gaining good traction until Poly sales dried up. CCV sales are drying up however RIV sales numbers are higher than CCV was at the same point in time.

Seems to me that someone is just being a negative Nancy towards Riviera...lol

 

[emchen]

I think you all are right, it's just the room cost year over year they were addressing. I had assumed it was another way to describe occupancy, i.e. "rate of bookings", but booked price makes more sense.

Regarding, "booked rate":

I think your first instinct is equally valid and I don't see any evidence cited that suggests "rate (price) of bookings" over "rate (pace) of bookings" as the correct interpretation.

Perhaps it can be surmised or clarified from previous statements or documents using similar jargon?

 

[emchen]

Seems to me that someone is just being a negative Nancy towards Riviera...lol

Trololol!

We all know @skier_pete is saying, "wait for the data" and not coming to premature conclusions. Advocating for circumspection is not the same as being a "negative Nancy"...I hope.

 

[Bing Showei]

Seems to me that someone is just being a negative Nancy towards Riviera...lol

Or maybe someone just took the time to look at the data and saw that as a percentage of total points sold, Riviera is down from CCV.

 

[Brianstl]

Regarding, "booked rate":

I think your first instinct is equally valid and I don't see any evidence cited that suggests "rate (price) of bookings" over "rate (pace) of bookings" as the correct interpretation.

Perhaps it can be surmised or clarified from previous statements or documents using similar jargon?

The CFO stated in the conference call the room bookings were comparable with fiscal year 2019 and then stated that booked rate was up 5%. It was clear she wasn’t stating that bookings were up. The transcript and recording are both available online if you don’t want to take my word for it.

 

[emchen]

The CFO stated in the conference call the room bookings were comparable with fiscal year 2019 and then stated that booked rate was up 5%. It was clear she wasn’t stating that bookings were up. The transcript and recording are both available online if you don’t want to take my word for it.

Of course I'll take your word for it. Thanks for the clarification.

 

[ELMC]

The CFO stated in the conference call the room bookings were comparable with fiscal year 2019 and then stated that booked rate was up 5%. It was clear she wasn’t stating that bookings were up. The transcript and recording are both available online if you don’t want to take my word for it.

This is consistent with the narrative they have been sharing both before and after the Q3 earnings call. The tiered ticketing system was designed to smooth out (read: reduce) attendance while keeping revenue streams constant. After Q3 earnings were released Iger cited that attendance was down but revenues were up. This reconciles with what we've been seeing recently with hotel prices, and I'm actually surprised that they didn't also see a drop in the quantity of room bookings as well.

 

[Soap_1984]

there are also a lot of positive pauls on riviera too; it's about perspective.

This is consistent with the narrative they have been sharing both before and after the Q3 earnings call. The tiered ticketing system was designed to smooth out (read: reduce) attendance while keeping revenue streams constant. After Q3 earnings were released Iger cited that attendance was down but revenues were up. This reconciles with what we've been seeing recently with hotel prices, and I'm actually surprised that they didn't also see a drop in the quantity of room bookings as well.

earnings calls are pretty much a waste of time, but if they say "comparable" that never means "increase", it means less but pretty close. So they probably did see a drop based on the language used.

Again revenues being up but profit being flat is bad for regular disney goers...it isn't a positive thing. All it means is they are going to (they already started) start cutting costs to increase profits. They don't add thousands of rooms so they can just charge more; believe me they want attendance to skyrocket. If you can spend less money and make the same amount, that is the optimal outcome.

 

[Brianstl]

This is consistent with the narrative they have been sharing both before and after the Q3 earnings call. The tiered ticketing system was designed to smooth out (read: reduce) attendance while keeping revenue streams constant. After Q3 earnings were released Iger cited that attendance was down but revenues were up. This reconciles with what we've been seeing recently with hotel prices, and I'm actually surprised that they didn't also see a drop in the quantity of room bookings as well.

While I think they are ok with some dip in attendance, I don’t think they want occupancy rates at or below 85%. They want those occupancy rates up.

The rates you see raised aren’t the actual price they charge. They were sending out PIN codes for $150 a night for bookings the week before Christmas. They want the rooms filled and will discount aggressively to fill those rooms.

 

[Brianstl]

there are also a lot of positive pauls on riviera too; it's about perspective.

earnings calls are pretty much a waste of time, but if they say "comparable" that never means "increase", it means less but pretty close. So they probably did see a drop based on the language used.

Again revenues being up but profit being flat is bad for regular disney goers...it isn't a positive thing. All it means is they are going to (they already started) start cutting costs to increase profits. They don't add thousands of rooms so they can just charge more; believe me they want attendance to skyrocket. If you can spend less money and make the same amount, that is the optimal outcome.

Occupancy was down. It was stated in the earnings call that domestic occupancy in 2018 was 85% in fiscal 2019. According to Disney’s 2018 annual report 2018 occupancy was 88%.

 

[wdwdaddy4life]

Trololol!

We all know @skier_pete is saying, "wait for the data" and not coming to premature conclusions. Advocating for circumspection is not the same as being a "negative Nancy"...I hope.

Obviously, my post was with tongue in cheek...lol...love @skier_pete

 

[skier_pete]

Seems to me that someone is just being a negative Nancy towards Riviera...lol

I will admit that I am rooting for the resale restrictions to fail. NOT Riviera to fail - the resale restrictions. The resale restrictions are going to hurt everyone...resale AND direct owners in the long term. Disney doesn't really care about that unless it hurts Disney too. We should all be rooting that the resale restrictions hurt sales, and that Disney sees that. Even Riviera owners, because if they peel away their restrictions, those Riviera owners will get a lot more money if they ever have to sell. (Riviera should be resaling at $160 a point, not $120-130.)

Trololol!

We all know @skier_pete is saying, "wait for the data" and not coming to premature conclusions. Advocating for circumspection is not the same as being a "negative Nancy"...I hope.

This is exactly right - the trend says that RIviera sales are "soft". Yes, you can always find something to compare sales to favorably and unfavorably. It's also easy to say "the problem is the resort isn't open" and of course that really COULD be the problem. I've said it several times in this thread - we probably have to wait at least until June to really get a feel for if Disney has a resale restriction problem. Sales will undoubtably spike after the first of the year, because the resort opens and that is the season of sales spikes. But what happens come April-June will really tell us more. If direct sales at Riviera remain significantly soft - then they are looking at a bigger issue than pre-open resort sales.

I am curious where you have numbers to say that RIV was down vs CC a year ago. I reviewed all of the sales data from when CCV went on sale. CCV went on pre-sale in March 2017 and opened in July 2017 (about 4 month sales prior to opening). The total points for those 4 months were 172,466. RIV went on sale 9 months prior to opening and sold 379,980 points in the first four months. CCV did not reach selling 100k= points per month until Jan 2018 (10th month) where RIV did it in month 3 (June 2019). CCV didn't seem to start gaining good traction until Poly sales dried up. CCV sales are drying up however RIV sales numbers are higher than CCV was at the same point in time.

I posted somewhere up thread I think - if you look at the numbers from a year ago, overall direct sales are up year over year, but the sales of old resorts are up significantly and the Riviera sales are lower than CC sales. Again, this could completely be a "resort isn't open" phenomenon, but the fact that old resort point sales are up pretty significantly when points are at all-time high ptices says a little something about the effect of resale restrictions I would think. Again -speculation on my part, and what I think of the data hardly matters - it's what Disney thinks of the data.

 

[RivShore]

I am curious where you have numbers to say that RIV was down vs CC a year ago. I reviewed all of the sales data from when CCV went on sale. CCV went on pre-sale in March 2017 and opened in July 2017 (about 4 month sales prior to opening). The total points for those 4 months were 172,466. RIV went on sale 9 months prior to opening and sold 379,980 points in the first four months. CCV did not reach selling 100k= points per month until Jan 2018 (10th month) where RIV did it in month 3 (June 2019). CCV didn't seem to start gaining good traction until Poly sales dried up. CCV sales are drying up however RIV sales numbers are higher than CCV was at the same point in time.

I posted somewhere up thread I think - if you look at the numbers from a year ago, overall direct sales are up year over year, but the sales of old resorts are up significantly and the Riviera sales are lower than CC sales. Again, this could completely be a "resort isn't open" phenomenon, but the fact that old resort point sales are up pretty significantly when points are at all-time high ptices says a little something about the effect of resale restrictions I would think. Again -speculation on my part, and what I think of the data hardly matters - it's what Disney thinks of the data.

Maybe you guys are looking at the same data but different time periods? It looks like dmurf is looking at the 1st 4 months of CCV sales vs. the 1st 4 months of RIV sales. Pete are you just looking at fiscal year vs. prior fiscal year? That may be why you all are coming to different conclusions.

 

[skier_pete]

Maybe you guys are looking at the same data but different time periods? It looks like dmurf is looking at the 1st 4 months of CCV sales vs. the 1st 4 months of RIV sales. Pete are you just looking at fiscal year vs. prior fiscal year? That may be why you all are coming to different conclusions.

So yes - I am trying to look at year over year. There are so many variables in DVC including resort being sold, resale prices, etc, and seasonal sales. To remove seasonal sales I wanted to compare the same month from one year to the next.

So to repeat - here is a 3-year comparison for August and September sales.
Remember, in Aug/Sept 2017 - DVC was still selling both Poly and CCV as new resorts, and Poly was still dominating sales, in Aug/Sept 2018 it was CCV only, and in Aug/Sept it was Riviera only (I didn't count CCV at this point because they had already raised the point price to $210 for that resort and were not focusing on sales there. )

Also understand I am just comparing NEW resort points sold versus OLD resort points sold, where NEW means the resort as listed above.
August 2017 203,204 pts sold, 174,229 pts at NEW resorts (86% NEW)
August 2018 161,681 pts sold, 134,373 pts at NEW resorts (79% NEW)
August 2019 174,899 pts sold, 104,758 pts at NEW resorts (60% NEW)

September 2017 187,012 pts sold, 159,666 pts at NEW resorts (85% NEW)
September 2018 156,931 pts sold, 129,331 pts at NEW resorts (82% NEW)
September 2019 149,900 pts sold, 102,859 pts at NEW resorts (68% NEW)

So MY point is that sales are fairly steady year over year, but the amount of sales from NEW resorts are down significantly. If you look back historically 80-85% from NEW sales is the more typical number, numbers in the sixties are unheard of.

And remember this also, in 2017, they had not yet raised direct point prices so drastically as they are now. In other words, in 2017, it was still CHEAPER to buy resorts like Boardwalk and BLT than it was to buy Poly or CCV, yet people were more likely to buy Poly/CCV. So the choice to buy Riviera is a significantly better value relative to older resorts as compared to what Poly/CCV were two years ago, yet direct sales of the resort are much softer.

So - I would be happy to hear other opinions for why direct sales % of the NEW Riviera resort is down so significantly relative to older resorts and I only see THREE possible reasons for this:
(1) Riviera sales are being hurt by having the resort not open so people are hesitant to buy an unknown quantity.
(2) Riviera sales are being hurt by having a resale restriction that does not affect the older resorts.
(3) Riviera sales are being hurt by the design/theme/location/point charts of the resort.

Can anyone think of another reason for this? I honestly doubt that #3 is truly the problem - but I included it anyways.

Reason #1 will be eliminated in just over a month - which will leave the other two. Reason #3 cannot be changed - but Reason #2 could be.

Again - I am not disparaging owners at Riviera here - I am just trying to look at the reality of sales.

 

[Momtomouselover]

I can reiterate that for me I didn’t purchase Riv because of the high MF & resale restrictions combined and next the high point charts. If the MFs became unbearable for some reason (or personally) you generally could sell but in this case the resale restrictions made it harder to get out.

 

[Sandisw]

So yes - I am trying to look at year over year. There are so many variables in DVC including resort being sold, resale prices, etc, and seasonal sales. To remove seasonal sales I wanted to compare the same month from one year to the next.

So to repeat - here is a 3-year comparison for August and September sales.
Remember, in Aug/Sept 2017 - DVC was still selling both Poly and CCV as new resorts, and Poly was still dominating sales, in Aug/Sept 2018 it was CCV only, and in Aug/Sept it was Riviera only (I didn't count CCV at this point because they had already raised the point price to $210 for that resort and were not focusing on sales there. )

Also understand I am just comparing NEW resort points sold versus OLD resort points sold, where NEW means the resort as listed above.
August 2017 203,204 pts sold, 174,229 pts at NEW resorts (86% NEW)
August 2018 161,681 pts sold, 134,373 pts at NEW resorts (79% NEW)
August 2019 174,899 pts sold, 104,758 pts at NEW resorts (60% NEW)

September 2017 187,012 pts sold, 159,666 pts at NEW resorts (85% NEW)
September 2018 156,931 pts sold, 129,331 pts at NEW resorts (82% NEW)
September 2019 149,900 pts sold, 102,859 pts at NEW resorts (68% NEW)

So MY point is that sales are fairly steady year over year, but the amount of sales from NEW resorts are down significantly. If you look back historically 80-85% from NEW sales is the more typical number, numbers in the sixties are unheard of.

And remember this also, in 2017, they had not yet raised direct point prices so drastically as they are now. In other words, in 2017, it was still CHEAPER to buy resorts like Boardwalk and BLT than it was to buy Poly or CCV, yet people were more likely to buy Poly/CCV. So the choice to buy Riviera is a significantly better value relative to older resorts as compared to what Poly/CCV were two years ago, yet direct sales of the resort are much softer.

So - I would be happy to hear other opinions for why direct sales % of the NEW Riviera resort is down so significantly relative to older resorts and I only see THREE possible reasons for this:
(1) Riviera sales are being hurt by having the resort not open so people are hesitant to buy an unknown quantity.
(2) Riviera sales are being hurt by having a resale restriction that does not affect the older resorts.
(3) Riviera sales are being hurt by the design/theme/location/point charts of the resort.

Can anyone think of another reason for this? I honestly doubt that #3 is truly the problem - but I included it anyways.

Reason #1 will be eliminated in just over a month - which will leave the other two. Reason #3 cannot be changed - but Reason #2 could be.

Again - I am not disparaging owners at Riviera here - I am just trying to look at the reality of sales.

Great info! I can’t think of any other reason, than what you listed, to explain why it’s not doing as well.

Even though I choose to buy, it was because in my case, and the profit I had from selling BWV, the resale value became less of an issue. Had I not had that, it wound have been a tough sell,

I do think that the restriction could be the factor for sure because it changed the DVC product, And, for me, that limits the buyers who might consider it vs, those of the other resorts.

While resale value shouldn’t play a role in someone‘s decision, I could see a new buyer deciding to spend a little more on a direct purchase at an older resort knowing that if they did have to sell, they were more likely to get that extra back in resale value over RIV.

 

[dmurf01]

I will admit that I am rooting for the resale restrictions to fail. NOT Riviera to fail - the resale restrictions. The resale restrictions are going to hurt everyone...resale AND direct owners in the long term. Disney doesn't really care about that unless it hurts Disney too. We should all be rooting that the resale restrictions hurt sales, and that Disney sees that. Even Riviera owners, because if they peel away their restrictions, those Riviera owners will get a lot more money if they ever have to sell. (Riviera should be resaling at $160 a point, not $120-130.)

Maybe you guys are looking at the same data but different time periods? It looks like dmurf is looking at the 1st 4 months of CCV sales vs. the 1st 4 months of RIV sales. Pete are you just looking at fiscal year vs. prior fiscal year? That may be why you all are coming to different conclusions.

I have a spreadsheet that lists the direct sales for them every month. CC only sold 4 months prior to opening while RIV is still in pre-opening sales (much longer period), so that is all you can really compare right now. The RIV numbers are much stronger than CC were. And the trend is similar with CC which got stronger as Poly sales wound down. RIV sales have softened a bit in Aug-Sep in line with all of the resorts decreasing during these slow months, which seems to be a normal trend each year. According to the data, 2018 Jan-Sep direct point sales were 1.7m and 2019 were 1.8m. Last year, Feb,Mar,Sep were stronger than this year while every other month was lower than this year.

I understand people's opinions on the resale restrictions as well as the other side. I am not debating those since that is moot at this point. My point is that we cannot say that RIV sales are slow because the data does not support that to date. We also can't claim that resale restrictions are having an impact because we don't know that. It would merely be an assumption because the numbers don't show it yet. Restrictions have been in place all year and RIV is selling. RIV has a lot of units. The true analysis would happen next year when the resort is open. Will RIV and all other sales follow the normal trends? If RIV sells 1.6m points next year, then it matches CC (is actually ahead if you add in this year's sales). Since RIV is larger, I am curious how long it will take to sell out or get close to it with Reflections approaching. I would assume they would like it to be at a certain level by the time they start marketing Reflections.