An air show near Walt Disney World in Lake Buena Vista, Fla. Attendance at Disney's theme parks is up this year.
Consumers, buffeted by rising costs for gasoline and groceries, have been finding ways to cut back on nonessential spending. But the Walt Disney Company said Tuesday that it saw no weakness in its theme park business, a unit that has come under scrutiny as an indicator of whether declining consumer confidence is seeping into more nooks and crannies of the economy.
Disney, reporting results for its fiscal second quarter, said that operating income in its parks and resorts division rose 33 percent on revenue of $2.7 billion. The Easter holiday, which fell early this year, delivered a significant lift. But even when the Easter bump was factored out, attendance at Disney's theme parks was slightly higher, Thomas O. Staggs, the company's chief financial officer, said in a conference call with analysts.
"Our parks offer a unique experience that simply is not available elsewhere," said Robert A. Iger, Disney's chief executive. Mr. Iger declined to speculate on how the parks would fare in the months ahead, but noted that hotel room reservations at Walt Disney World in Florida were "very strong" in April, the first month of Disney's third quarter.
For the first three months of 2008, Disney reported net income of $1.1 billion, or 58 cents a share, a 22 percent rise from $931 million, or 44 cents a share, a year earlier. Revenue increased 9.5 percent, to $8.71 billion.
Strong DVD sales for "Enchanted" and "No Country for Old Men" helped drive a 61 percent jump in profit at Walt Disney Studios. The division also got a lift from blockbuster ticket sales for "Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour." The movie, presented in 3-D, was filmed on a shoestring budget but generated more than $65 million in tickets at North American theaters.
At the media networks unit, which includes ABC and ESPN, profit soared 14 percent on revenue of $1.3 billion. Disney said that ESPN had benefited in the quarter from contractual increases in carriage fees from cable networks. ABC Studios, which produces shows like "Grey's Anatomy," fueled the rise in profit because it recorded lower production costs.
Because Disney's theme parks, a $10.6 billion annual business, have faltered during previous recessions, investors and the media have been watching their performance for clues about the health of the economy. Vacations to Disneyland in Southern California and Walt Disney World have grown significantly more expensive in recent months as gasoline prices surge and air fares increase.
But many analysts caution against reading too much into the results, arguing that fundamental changes in the travel business since previous slowdowns have made the business a less-reliable prognosticator.
The number of advance hotel bookings, for instance, has traditionally been used to measure the health of the business. Yet Americans have moved toward more last-minute bookings, in part because of the rise of Internet travel sites.
Disney's parks also offer an array of hotels very different from what was available during past economic slowdowns. During the recession in the early 1990s, for instance, 55 percent of the company's hotel rooms at Walt Disney World fell in the premium category. Mr. Iger said 75 percent of hotels rooms at the resort now fall in the "moderately priced or value priced" category.
Mr. Iger said that the domestic parks were benefiting from the weak dollar and noted that Disney had invested in new attractions over the last two years that were helping to keep interest high among vacationers.
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