If Disney aren't prepared to further invest in AK because they don't think that ROI is high enough to warrant it then they certainly won't think that a ROI is high enough for a new park.
I think you misunderstood my post, and I think that's my fault. I can understand my post reads "Disney needs a fifth park
now!"
That's not what I intended to say. I'm mostly replying to this concept that "3 is the sweet spot" for number of theme parks to manage.
Here's your quote from earlier in this thread:
"To me, this is the biggest problem with having 4 parks, especially in this age of ultra themed lands. You can only do so much at one time. 3 parks is hopefully the sweet spot that Universal is aiming for."
This is what I disagree with. First, Animal Kingdom (WDW Park #4) itself was not a bad idea. Three was not a 'sweet spot' that they ruined with AK. The park itself turned out to be a big success, considering it's one of the most visited theme parks in the world. I'm sure you agree that the issue was that Disney didn't properly maintain the parks they had... But this wasn't because they had four instead of three. It was largely due to two consecutive recessions which impacted the tourism industry, as well as some perceived 'failures' elsewhere (Eurodisney, DCA, Disney Quest, etc). This made them have cold feet everywhere, not just WDW. This would have happened even if they had 3 parks instead of 4 in Orlando from 2000-2015.
That being said, I believe with enough demand, Universal could go to four, Disney can manage their current four or could even go to five. And in these collective 9 parks, Universal and Disney can build 1 attraction per park every couple of years. Will they? That's debatable. But that's not the point. They
could build and manage them (if demand were to ever support it).
(Note: the "can" part is largely to do with their ability which includes funds, land, IPs, third party partnerships (like construction companies), leadership, etc. But "will they" is their willingness, (motivation), which are impacted by things like risk and ROI.)
Tourism to Orlando cannot have exponential growth. The parks at some stage are going to be too overcrowded and they're raising prices now to try and stop that growth with their current set up.
I mentioned price in my post. But at a certain point, raising price doesn't quite make sense. It's just like any other product, at a certain point it makes more sense to increase supply to keep up with demand. I'm more than happy to discuss further on this but it gets us off topic.
You can't compare a coffee shop to a theme park.
You can compare anything depending on how you are comparing. My example works fine.
The Starbucks in Disney are constantly mobbed, why don't they build another one in the same parks?
If demand for coffee increases, Disney could (would) easily add more coffee locations, they don't need to add Starbucks. Note that Universal and Disney have both expanded their coffee locations over the years (including Starbucks). If Starbucks had a choice, they'd probably add more Starbucks to the parks, but it's not up to them.
The real danger is that all it takes is another 9/11 or economic collapse for the arse to completely fall out the industry and the bigger they are, the bigger they fall.
I agree. But this risk hasn't stopped them from growing. And this risk does not validate your point that four was too many for Disney to manage.
Just because they can, doesn't mean they should
I agree.
Disney believes a fourth park was a good idea, and I agree with Disney. Three is not a sweet spot. A large company like Disney can manage four or more theme parks in one geographic region (largely just depends on demand). That's really all I'm trying to say.