The Walt Disney Company’s Growth Engines: The Parks

This is the second part in a three part series examining the parts of The Walt Disney Company that Bob Iger has said will be the source of growth moving forward. Today, we will take a look at the Parks.

The return of Disney’s park business out of the pandemic has been remarkable. Even Disney’s parks in Asia and its cruise business have bounced back despite having been the most impacted. In fact, Disney Cruise Line is running at 98% occupancy, and this is after they added additional capacity by welcoming the Disney Wish to their fleet. This is just one example of the strong demand Disney is seeing for their parks and experiences. And while the entire group is performing above pre-pandemic levels, you can’t grow a business by just keeping the status quo. It is time to think of how Disney will invest in the parks to keep them growing.

The strategy of the two parts of the business we have already mentioned is the clearest. Disney Cruise Line has three more ships joining the fleet over the next few years, which will nearly double their capacity. In Asia, all of the parks of major expansion projects underway. Tokyo DisneySea has Fantasy Springs, Hong Kong has World of Frozen, while Shanghai has the City of Zootopia. While all of these projects are exciting, many Disney fans are struggling to see where the growth of the domestic parks will be.

Outside of some minor projects and the reimaging of Splash Mountain into Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, the amount of construction happening at the domestic parks is the lowest it has been in years. However, we were given clues during Disney’s recent earnings calls that the spending dip may be temporary. The amount invested in new projects is lower than originally envisioned, but Disney’s CFOs made it clear that this is due to timing of projects being ready and not cancellation. While we do not know why these projects were delayed, it is conceivable that Imagineering’s changing relocation plans impacted timing. Disney also brought back Bruce Vaughn to be Imagineering’s Chief Creative Officer just this spring, which may have resulted in a review of future development. After all, due to the investment involved in major attractions, it is more important that they are built right than being built fast.

But how will they grow the parks? While Josh D’Amaro teased some ideas that Disney was thinking about at the D23 Expo, it is understandable that fans were a bit disappointed in the number of new experiences that were actually announced. Will projects such as the reimagining of Dinoland or “beyond Big Thunder” come to be? While we don’t know what the projects will be, for the most part, we do know that Disney is planning on dreaming big.

It was announced that Disney was planning on investing $17 billion in Florida over the next decade. And while it is unclear how the political environment may impact Disney’s plans, if that goes through, it would be significant. For perspective, Disney is on track to spend $2 billion on all of their domestic projects this year. At the announced level, Disney would be spending, on average, $1.7 billion a year on Walt Disney World alone.

Meanwhile, in California, the Disneyland Resort will not be left in Walt Disney World’s dust. While we know Disney is working on a new Avengers E-ticket as well as a vaguely-defined Avatar experience, the biggest transformative work with the DisneylandForward project. The simple version of DisneylandForward is that the resort is seeking to add flexibility where they can build theme park experiences. Currently, there are areas zoned for hotels, parks, and parking. Disneyland is seeking to remove those distinctions without increasing the amount of total park and hotel area that is approved. With Disney seeking the flexibility to build theme park experiences in more places, one’s imagination can go wild thinking of the possibilities. While there are still regulatory steps to take, unlocking the growth potential of the Disneyland Resort could result in the destination’s biggest transformation in over two decades.  

While we now have an idea of the decade-long plan for Walt Disney World and the long-term vision for the Disneyland Resort, we may not have to wait too long to see how Disney plans to grow the parks. Bob Iger specifically said that they plan to make major investments in the next five years. Given the time it takes to build major theme park experiences, we should hear more about Disney’s plans in the near future. Disney Parks, Experiences and Products Chairman Josh D’Amaro is slated to take the stage at Destination D23 at Walt Disney World next month. Will he make a bigger splash than he did at last year’s expo? While we can’t know for sure, I wouldn’t be surprised if Disney fans have a lot to look forward to in the very near future.

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