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Disney Parks are wisely launching a better marketing campaign for 2009 than the fully-played Year of a Million Dreams, which overstayed its welcome for many fans by almost an entire year. The new "What Will You Celebrate" concept will play better, especially because of the freebies thrown in when you come on your birthday. But will it be enough? Can Walt Disney World (WDW) in particular weather the tourism storm merely by dint of a marketing campaign?

It is a good campaign, and it's not a foregone conclusion either way. Disney may well make ends meet, or more, on the marketing alone. That might be especially possible if the campaign were offered in a vacuum, and this was the only variable to influence travelers in their vacation decisions. But, as we all know, real life is NOT a vacuum, and there are some decidedly significant variables out of Disney's hand right now, and most of them are working against WDW.

Mostly, this boils down to the macro-economic situation, the credit crunch, the national and international recessions in gross domestic product, and, oh yes, the precipitous fall of the stock market, which has tumbled more than 30% since its peak and sliced off untold billions in the US markets alone. The paper loss suffered in stock market and retirement accounts, coupled with people no longer able to tap home equity for quick cash, has a great many folks feeling either cash-poor or fearful of becoming that way, which makes them skittish about spending money. We're seeing the flipside of the "wealth effect" of recent years; and the "reverse wealth effect" is clearly causing consumers to tighten belts.

All this is well-documented (or at least well-argued) in the financial news and blogs, but the question before us now is how much of an impact all this will have on WDW. Well, it's a quick conclusion to reach that fewer people will be coming to WDW, which is tourist-based (unlike Disneyland, which can rely much more on its millions of locals). Disney itself has acknowledged this in their most recent quarterly report, and they expect to see fewer visitors overall (but hope to reap--or wring--a bit more cash from those that DO come).

So far, so good. This has been noticed and debated on message boards for some time. But what's gotten a bit less attention is the status of all those expansion plans. At any given moment, Disney has literally dozens of irons in the fire for new projects. A select few usually make it on the fast-track, others languish for a while and then get built (with a subset enduring significant changes before seeing the light of day), and still others get permanently shelved, in a Walt Disney Imagineering version of "development hell" (the industry term for where movie scripts go to die).

So what's happening with those irons in the fire? You might expect that a consumer recession is exactly the RIGHT time to built infrastructure and add new rides; that way, once the recession is over, you've got a brand new ride to lure those folks who spent the time at home. Usually that would be true, except that this time it's different. It's not just a consumer recession. Perhaps the most significant problem in the economy today is the credit crunch: banks aren't lending, and few companies are asking anyway. No one wants new debt, new risk, new potential downsides. And in Orlando Disney seems to be no exception.


Now here's "fuel for thought" for Walt Disney World: will General Motors be able to continue sponsoring Test Track? Will that kind of use of money pass the scrutiny brought on by the recent bailout?

While nothing seems to be outright cancelled of all the things being considered, neither is anything being rushed toward completion, either. It's as if everything in the pipeline suddenly slowed down to "creep mode" like you might see at the loading platform for the Haunted Mansion. The vast majority of the ideas were still in some version of "blue sky" brainstorming anyway, rather than put into the budget. At Disney, it's a definite truism that nothing is sure to be built at the parks until the concrete is poured (and even that has backfired on occasion as a predictor!)

Here what was being discussed:

  • A gigantic expansion for Fantasyland, including a dark ride for Little Mermaid and maybe a small roller coaster for the Seven Dwarves
  • A Monsters Inc. ride next to Toy Story Mania
  • An E-Ticket to replace Backlot Tram Tour, possibly the Radiator Springs thrill ride using Test Track technology
  • A new Star Tours film (this one is likely to happen, as it's already filmed)
  • And further out, much of it in no firm status:

  • Another E-Ticket for the Magic Kingdom's 40th anniversary
  • A thrill ride for the Tokyo pavilion in Epcot
  • A re-theme of Lights Motors Action to Cars
  • A new Imagination ride (again!)
  • New nighttime parades at MK and, intriguingly, at DAK
  • New restaurants such as a replacement for the Tomorrowland skyway building
  • But with all the turmoil, very little of the above is proceeding fast right now, and it will probably be years before anything major materializes.

    On the one hand, Disney's precaution is both warranted and wise. We're looking at the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression by some measures, so Disney is apparently acting responsibly. Lest we forget, management's ultimately beholden to its owners (the stockholders) and creditors (the bondholders), and it's in this to make money.

    All that's fine and dandy, but it leaves Disney with a pretty big problem. With the big slowdown in new projects, there is extremely little in the pipeline to draw folks for 2009. Remember how real life is not a vacuum? Well, in addition to the credit crisis, WDW has to deal with its neighbors and competitors. And wouldn't you know it? Both SeaWorld Orlando and Universal Studios Florida are planning to open E-ticket roller coasters in late spring of 2009. SeaWorld is getting Mantis, a marquee roller coaster.


    That looks like a lot of inversions. And what's this about hitting the water at the end?


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    © 2008 Kevin Yee

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