I think there was a real turning point in recent history when social media became popular when people started to feel like they had to show everyone just how interesting their life was.
Demand definitely increased with Facebook and even more with Instagram.
Of all the speculation here, I think this might actually be the real reason.
The rest of this post is for nerds only…
The population of the 10 counties that make up Southern California was around 18.2 million in 1990. And was around 23.7 million in 2020. That’s 5.5 million more people over 30 years.
Disneyland attendance (not DCA) in 1990 was 12.9 million, and in 2019 was 18.6 million. That’s also coincidentally around 5.5 million more people. Obviously it’s not just locals that visit Disneyland, but it doesn’t seem like an increase in population is the
only factor contributing to increased attendance at Disneyland .
Interestingly, from 1990 to 2004 Disneyland attendance was fairly stable. It wasn’t growing a little bit each year (even though the population was). Attendance fluctuated right around that 13 million mark. The increase in yearly attendance at Disneyland from 1990-2019 all happened
since 2005.
In 2005 there was an attendance jump over 1 million guests. That held for a few years and then in 2009 there was another attendance jump over a million. And then in 2015 an attendance jump of 1.5 million.
Facebook started in 2004, and became the most visited social media site in 2008. Instagram launched in 2010 and was acquired by Facebook in 2012.
There’s a lot of factors being thrown around here, but the correlation between the increase in attendance since 2005 and the rise of social media is very interesting.
Side note: The opening of DCA and Downtown Disney in 2001 didn’t seem to have much effect on attendance at Disneyland Park. I’m sure it increased attendance at the resort overall, but as far as the physical number of people in Disneyland Park, the numbers didn’t really start increasing until a few years later around 2005.