For a company fond of size and spectacle, these are sobering times. Attendance is down at the parks. And, after tripling between 1984 and 1992, revenues were $3.4 billion last year, up only slightly from 1992. That’s thanks in part to the competition. Disney goes head to head with Universal’s park in Florida, and elsewhere wages a nasty little war with Time Warner’s Six Flags.
Disney execs insist there’s still room for growth in the theme-park business. But the company is acting a wee bit tentative these days. It canceled plans for an aquatic park in Long Beach, Calif., delayed an ambitious Disneyland addition and is only slowly ruminating on another location for the Far East. Where Disney seems to be heading now – and industry analysts believe it should – is toward smaller parks that require less capital. It’s unlikely that Disney’s America would create the sort of crass urban sprawl that’s causing such high anxiety in Virginia. There wouldn’t be any hotels at the park site, the company says; half the size of Disney World, the park would cater to day-trippers from Washington.
Disney’s current strategy also includes a play for new customers. Euro Disney is hoping to attract business conferences. Disney World is offering Innoventions, a consumer-electronics show, and will shortly unveil the Disney Institute, with classes in everything from animation to landscape design. As for attractions, Disney World boasts a new “Twilight Zone Tower of Terror” (not for the elevator-phobic) and promises a new Tomorrowland. If there’s one thing Disney has learned about the theme-park business, it’s that tomorrow doesn’t look like it used to.
