An Interview with Cynthia Harriss, Disneyland's President
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Harriss and Mickey and the 1999 Christmas Collectibles Event

LP: Going back to the Annual Passholders, a while ago, I guess for two years, there were Annual Passholder events at a lower price. Since then you’ve moved towards more merchandise events which are also wonderful. But they are not Passholder exclusive, they are at a higher price and not necessarily enjoyed by as many people. Do you think there’s going to be a move to go back to the old-type Annual Passholder events?

CH: First of all, we’re very appreciative of our Annual Passholders because I do know that those are some of our biggest fans and the fact that they are committing to come and come often to the park, we appreciate it immensely. Some of the outgrowth of the special events that we’ve had over the last couple of years was on the other side of the coin. We heard from our surveys, and in particular with our most loyal guests, they wanted to come more often for a variety of things. So I think it’s us having combinations of things. We’re certainly open to it. There isn’t a trend one way or another right this second but it's trying to stay close to our guests - about what will really be important to them.

I think there are a couple of things we’ve got coming up in the short term. Obviously the opening of the new park. There is going to be a lot for all of us to come and see it and just take that in. Then we have Disneyana which will be - we'll be hosting Disneyana in 2001 in the fall which will be the first time in five years, and we know those are a lot of the same guests. As much as they’re not exclusive just for Annual Passholders, they’re pretty big events. And one of the things that I’ve heard also from some of our most loyal guests is just the fact they want to come to everything and how many things can they come to? So we’re trying to balance this knowing what activities we’ve got coming up. We hope there’s always something special though for people to come and see.

LP: Disneyland, like a lot of companies today, has several Web sites on the Internet pretty much devoted to the company, In Disneyland's case there are over 200 at my last count ...

CH: Really

LP: ... devoted to Disneyland

CH: I certainly don’t have time to read all that by a long shot.

LP: And some of these follow every move that Disneyland makes with a fine tooth comb and some moves you haven't made yet, just rumors.

CH: Right

LP: How much attention do you pay to what’s going on on the Internet and does that really affect how you do your job?

CH: I think it's an interesting thing. Always, from the first day when we opened the park, guests comments have been an important part of our heritage and how we shape what we offer to our guests as we go forward. We’re responsible to creatively determine what’s the right approach based on guest input. We don’t ask our guests to run the park or figure that out, but that’s a big part of it. The Internet is just another avenue within that and we take it just as we do with the guests that register their issues with City Hall. As you know we get lots of compliments like "love this." Those are the kind of things we want to do more and if there is an issue where we haven’t addressed it as effectively, those are the things we want to work on. So I kind of put it into that bucket - more of guest comments. I can tell you that there is no way I read 200 websites [laughs]. That’s more comments than I can probably absorb. There are probably some of the more popular ones, like yours, I try to pay attention to - I think you’ve got a pretty big following here - more so than probably some of the secondary ones.

LP: There are a lot of sites out there that specialize in rumors and that are very, very critical in that area, how does that affect Disneyland as a whole and you personally?

CH: I’ll just say personally, this is why when you invited me to do an interview I was glad to talk to you. I love to talk to people, as it’s appropriate, to give people the real facts because I thinks it’s unfortunate when things are posted as a fact when it’s actually maybe just a speculation. That can get people involved in something that wasn’t even true or wasn’t even something we thought about. I think that’s unfortunate at times because it’s a lot of energy, again something that really doesn’t have any basis for it. I think that’s the only way I can really respond. We’d rather give people the facts. In fact Ray [Disneyland spokesperson Ray Gomez] has a department of folks that deal with the press internally and externally and handling communications relative to that. Because we think we have a lot of good news and we’re glad to share that.