By Rob Lovitt
Travel writer 
Funny thing is, that vision probably wouldn’t have included the Disney World we know today, let alone the resorts, cruise ships and other projects that increasingly define the company’s outsized role in the travel industry.
Now, 40 years on, the
company is embarking on new projects — the recently opened Aulani resort in
Hawaii, a new “Avatar land” at Animal Kingdom in Orlando, a new Disneyland in
Shanghai and its second new cruise ship in just over a year — and hoping to
make an even larger mark on the great American vacation.
The
mouse makes its mark Opening five years after its founder’s death,
Walt Disney World debuted with a single park — Magic Kingdom — and just two
hotels. Yet its impact was hard to miss.
“One of the biggest
things it changed was where we vacationed,” said Chad Emerson, author of the
2010 book “Project Future: The Inside Story Behind the Creation of Disney
World.”
“Before the Disney World
property became what it did, the area was a swamp. Back then, when people went
to Florida, they went to the beach,” said Emerson. “Disney World proved that if
you build something and make it compelling enough, people will go just about
anywhere.”
Disney World also offered
something its predecessor in Anaheim couldn’t — adjacent space for hotels,
restaurants and other ancillary offerings. Where Disneyland is surrounded by
urban sprawl that provides marginal value (and zero revenue) to the company,
Disney World was designed from the start as an all-encompassing experience.
“The goal was to use the
theme park as a centerpiece and then add other types of development — the
hotels, the restaurants, the shopping,” said John Gerner, managing director of
Leisure Business Advisors LLC. “That packaging aspect is essentially what the
company has given the industry.”
Ironically, that “gift”
may very well have gone ungiven if Walt Disney had lived to see Disney World
open, suggests Emerson. “Late in life, he was more interested in city planning.
He saw Magic Kingdom as a primer, a way to generate interest and traffic, which
would then be supplemented with real neighborhoods, office parks, an airport,”
he told msnbc.com.
“If Walt had lived
another 10, 15, 20 years, Disney World wouldn’t be nearly the tourist
destination that it is.”
Thinking
outside the berm As a 20-year Disney veteran, Tom Staggs has
played a pivotal role in adapting Walt’s vision to changing times. Now chairman
of the company’s parks and resorts business, he’s leading the charge to ensure
that business stays relevant in the decades to come.
Actually, Staggs’ “parks
and resorts” title is a bit of a misnomer as he also oversees the company’s
vacation-ownership (timeshare) operations, its rapidly expanding cruise line
and Adventures by Disney, which offers guided family trips to non-park
destinations around the world — endeavors that are increasingly far removed
from the traditional theme-park experience.
“For Walt, the ‘place’
was simply a device to create the experiences he wanted to create,” said
Staggs. “That’s the context we look at when we consider new businesses. Where
are the opportunities we can create these great guest experiences that we can
feel good about calling Disney experiences?”
Such efforts underscore a
fundamental shift for the company: Instead of focusing exclusively on bringing
guests into the parks, Disney executives are also looking at where else their
guests like to go — Hawaii, for example —and hoping they’ll choose Disney as
their preferred travel provider.
“When we got into the
cruise business, it was almost a non sequitur for some people,” said Staggs.
“Basically, they said, ‘You’re a theme park company.’ But to say that misses
the point. The cruise business for us is about creating this vehicle for shared
experiences.
“To a certain extent, we
even had to culturally get our own people to understand that we didn’t have to
have families inside the berm — in the theme parks — to deliver a Disney
vacation experience.”
Where’s
Mickey? What does it mean for travelers? Less focus on fairy-tale
castles and animated characters and more emphasis on authentic, local
experiences. At Aulani, Disney’s new resort on Oahu, for example, cast members
— it is a Disney property, after all — offer language lessons and share stories
of Hawaiian culture. Mickey and Minnie do show up, but they’re portrayed as
other guests, not as lords of the mouse-house manor.
That’s especially true
with Adventures by Disney, which debuted in 2005 to provide guided trips and
tours designed for families but with nary a Disney character in sight.
“People always ask us,
‘Am I going to see Mickey on the Colorado River?’ ” said Karl Holz, president,
Disney Cruise Line and New Vacation Operations. “I guarantee you Mickey will
not jump out from behind a rock.”
Which, it should be
noted, could be considered a double-edged sword? Without its signature
characters, Disney has to compete in these new areas with companies that have
been in the field for decades — and without it’s proverbial ace in the hole.
Whether it’s Westin in Hawaii or Royal Caribbean on the high seas, Disney is,
strange as it sounds, the upstart, not the 800-pound gorilla in the game.
Nevertheless, these new
businesses, coupled with continued strong theme park attendance (and, let’s
face it, some of the highest ticket prices in the business), appear to be
serving the company well. Through the first nine months of Disney’s fiscal
year, which ended July 2, revenues from its travel-related businesses
approached $8.7 billion, up 9 percent from the year before.
Boy
wizards and blue aliens Meanwhile, the other side
of the ledger shows the company investing billions — almost $2.1 billion under
the parks and resorts banner over the last nine-month reporting period alone —
on new projects and expansion/updates.
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