



LOS ANGELES — Americans, struggling with rising costs, have been looking for ways to cut back on nonessential spending. But Disney, so far at least, apparently does not count as a discretionary expense.
The company, reporting results for its winter quarter Wednesday, said operating profit at its domestic theme park division had climbed 13% from a year earlier, to $1.82 billion. Revenue increased 9%, to $6.5 billion. Park attendance was up. Hotel room bookings were up. And spending on merchandise and food was up.
Disney also reiterated that its experiences division as a whole (including overseas parks, cruises, and games and other consumer products) was still on course to increase its operating profit as much as 8% for the year, compared with 4% in 2024. The division contributes roughly 60% of Disney’s annual profit.
The vibrancy of that business helped push Disney’s adjusted per-share income for the quarter up 20%, to $1.45, handily beating analyst expectations. Separately on Wednesday, Disney announced that it would team with the Miral Group to open its seventh theme park resort: Disneyland Abu Dhabi.
Speaking to analysts on a conference call, Bob Iger, the company’s CEO, called the Abu Dhabi decision “a huge endorsement of that location,” noting the tourism growth expected for the United Arab Emirates capital.
Disney shares climbed 10% in early trading.
Disney has long been seen as a bellwether for consumer confidence. When ticket sales and hotel reservations at the company’s theme park resorts in Florida and California start to weaken, it’s usually a sign that Americans are growing pessimistic about the economy.
Wall Street has been worried. Passenger traffic at Orlando International Airport during the first quarter was down 4% from a year earlier, according to government data. Disney has also been rolling out steep discounts for the summer. On Tuesday, for instance, Walt Disney World near Orlando began selling “summer magic” discounts for Florida residents — multiday tickets can be had for as little as $60, a 40% savings.
Gavin Doyle, who runs MickeyVisit, a site unaffiliated with Disney that focuses on theme park vacation planning, said discounts probably reflected three challenges: consumer queasiness about the economy, a lack of new Disney rides to market and increased competition from the Universal Orlando Resort.
Whatever the reason, the price breaks seem to be working. Hugh F. Johnston, Disney’s chief financial officer, told analysts Wednesday that vacation bookings at Disney World for the current quarter are up 4% compared with last year and the summer quarter is running 7% ahead.
“Quite strong,” he said.
Johnston added that Disney had seen almost no drop-off in overseas bookings — maybe 1% to 1.5%, he said. (News outlets have reported declines in visitors to the United States in general during the new Trump administration, especially from Europe and Canada. But a close look at the data shows it has so far been holding up.)
Disney also reported better-than-expected results for its flagship streaming service. Analysts had expected Disney+ to shed several million subscribers in the quarter because of price increases and programming cutbacks.