Word: disneyland
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That's the mission of Disney's California Adventure, its newest theme park, which opened last week in Anaheim, across the street from the original Disneyland. Theme parks are something Disney has always done well. Last year the parks accounted for about 27% of the company's $25.4 billion in sales and nearly 50% of its $3.2 billion in operating profits. In the company's most recent quarter, "once again, parks and resorts proved to be an extraordinary driver of higher earnings," noted ceo Michael Eisner. The new 55-acre California Adventure is part of a $1.4 billion expansion that...
...idea, of course, is to prevent the customers from leaving until Mickey has all their money. Disneyland was designed to be a one-day romp for most guests; Disney's California Adventure is a multiple-day, capital-R Resort. "We really transformed Orlando into a resort-vacation destination," says Paul Pressler, chairman of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts. "And now our second park here in Southern California is striving to do the same thing...
...Disney, the addition of a new, competing park alongside Disneyland represents a major gamble with its original 45-year-old property. Yet such parks generate cash far more reliably than, say, the movie business. Which is why Disney is also expanding at Tokyo's DisneySea this year, adding a second gate in Paris next year and drawing up plans for a new Hong Kong Disneyland...
...expansion project, five years in the works, clearly illustrates two valuable lessons the company has learned about how to make money in the theme-park business. The first lesson is, don't overbuild. Disney learned that the hard way in France, where the overly ambitious Disneyland Paris forced the company to take a write-down in 1993. "We probably built too many hotel rooms and sized the park a little larger than we needed to," admits Pressler. When it came to expanding in Anaheim, he says, "we wanted to make sure we were building smaller than we feel the demand...
...Reiji has his way, his clubs will become the model for any service-oriented business in Japan. "Disneyland is a franchise that's attained global success by knowing what a child wants," he says. "If I can get women to love me as much as children love Mickey Mouse?and if I can teach you how?is there any business that won't find value in that?" You might shake your head, finding it hard to make the connection with any other business you know. But give Reiji a fistful of yen for a bottle of cognac...