Walt Disney Parks and Resorts
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Walt Disney Parks and Resorts is the division of The Walt Disney Company that conceives, builds and manages the company's theme parks and vacation resorts, as well as a variety of additional family-oriented leisure enterprises. It is one of the four major units of the company, the other three being Consumer Products, Media Networks and Studio Entertainment.
The Parks and Resorts division was founded in 1971 as Walt Disney Attractions when Disney's second theme park, the Magic Kingdom at the Walt Disney World Resort in Florida, opened, joining the original Disneyland in California. The chairman of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts is James A. "Jay" Rasulo, formerly the chairman of Disneyland Resort Paris.
Contents |
[edit] Administration
- Chairman - Jay Rasulo
- President, Operations - Al Weiss
- President, Disneyland Resort - Ed Grier
- President, Walt Disney World Resort - Meg Crofton
- Chairman and CEO, Euro Disney SCA (Disneyland Resort Paris) - Karl Holz
- Executive Vice President and Group Managing Director, Hong Kong Disneyland Resort - Bill Ernest
- President, Disney Cruise Line - Tom McAlpin
- Human Resources, Diversity & Inclusion - Philippe Gas
- International Development and Walt Disney Attractions Japan - Nick Franklin
- Walt Disney Imagineering, Walt Disney Creative Entertainment, Adventures by Disney, Disney Regional Entertainment - Don Goodman
- Public Affairs - Leslie Goodman
- Finance and IT & Research - Jim Hunt
- Global Marketing - Michael Mendenhall
- President, Operations - Al Weiss
[edit] Disney properties
[edit] Disneyland Resort
Disneyland was founded as a single park by Walt Disney in 1955 in Anaheim, California.
In 2001, the area was officially named the Disneyland Resort with the opening of Disney's California Adventure Park, two new resort hotels and the Downtown Disney retail, dining and entertainment district. Disneyland celebrated its 50th anniversary on July 17, 2005.
Properties:
- Disneyland
- Disney's California Adventure Park
- Downtown Disney
- Disneyland Hotel, Disney's Grand Californian Hotel & Spa, Disney's Paradise Pier Hotel (previously Disneyland Pacific Hotel, renamed 2001)
[edit] Walt Disney World Resort
Walt Disney World Resort opened in 1971 with the Magic Kingdom Park (similar in layout to Disneyland) and three resort hotels in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, a few miles southwest of Orlando. The property is twice the size of Manhattan, with about a quarter of it having been developed to date. It has become the most popular tourist destination on Earth,[citation needed] with four theme parks, two water parks, a shopping and entertainment complex, dozens of resort hotels and eight golf courses.
Properties:
- Magic Kingdom Park
- Epcot
- Disney-MGM Studios
- Disney's Animal Kingdom
- Disney's Blizzard Beach water park
- Disney's Typhoon Lagoon water park
- Downtown Disney
- Disney's Grand Floridian Resort & Spa, Disney's Contemporary Resort, Disney's Polynesian Resort, Disney's Port Orleans Resort, Disney's Saratoga Springs Resort & Spa, Disney's Old Key West Resort, Disney's Caribbean Beach Resort, Disney's BoardWalk Resort, Disney's Beach Club Resort, Disney's Yacht Club Resort, Disney's Coronado Springs Resort, Disney's Pop Century Resort, Disney's All-Star Movies Resort, Disney's All-Star Music Resort, Disney's All-Star Sports Resort, Disney's Wilderness Lodge, Disney's Fort Wilderness Resort & Campground
[edit] Tokyo Disney Resort
Tokyo Disney Resort, located in Urayasu, Chiba, Japan, opened in 1983. In 2001 the resort expanded with Tokyo DisneySea. There are several resort hotels on site, but only two are actually owned by the resort, which boasts the largest parking structure in the world. Tokyo Disney Resort is fully owned and operated by The Oriental Land Company and is licensed by the Walt Disney Company. The resort was built by Walt Disney Imagineering, and Disney maintains a degree of control; Nick Franklin leads the Walt Disney Attractions Japan team at the Walt Disney Company, which communicates with the Oriental Land Company over all aspects of the Resort, and assigns Imagineers to the Resort.
Properties:
- Tokyo Disneyland
- Tokyo DisneySea
- Disney's Ambassador Hotel and Hotel MiraCosta
- Ikspiari shopping, dining and entertainment complex
[edit] Disneyland Resort Paris
Disneyland Resort Paris, Disney's second resort complex outside the United States, opened in 1992 as Euro Disney Resort. Located in Marne-la-Vallée, in the suburbs of Paris, France, it features two theme parks, a shopping complex and six Disney resort hotels. It is maintained and managed by Euro Disney S.C.A., a company partially owned by the Walt Disney Company whose stock is traded on Euronext.
Properties:
- Disneyland Park
- Walt Disney Studios Park
- Disney Village
- Golf Disneyland
- Disneyland Hotel, Disney's Hotel New York, Disney's Newport Bay Club, Disney's Sequoia Lodge, Disney's Hotel Cheyenne, Disney's Hotel Santa Fe, Disney's Davy Crockett Ranch
[edit] Hong Kong Disneyland Resort
Hong Kong Disneyland, Disney's fifth resort (the second in Asia) opened on September 12, 2005. The resort is located in Penny's Bay, Lantau Island. Currently, the resort consists of one theme park and two hotels, with land reserved for future expansion. It is owned and operated by Hongkong International Theme Parks, an incorporated company jointly owned by The Walt Disney Company and the Government of Hong Kong.
Properties:
- Hong Kong Disneyland
- Inspiration Lake Recreation Centre
- Disneyland Hotel and Disney's Hollywood Hotel
[edit] Disney Cruise Line
Though it is part of the Walt Disney World Resort venture, Disney Cruise Line is an altogether separate branch of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts. Disney Cruise Line was formed in 1995; its two ships, the Disney Magic and Disney Wonder, began operation in 1998 and 1999, respectively, and were designed in collaboration with Walt Disney Imagineering. Both ships offer three-, four- and seven-night Caribbean cruises, each with a stop at Disney's private island in the Bahamas, Castaway Cay. For a limited time, cruises along the Mexican Riviera were available, in coordination with the 50th Anniversary celebration of Disneyland.
Properties:
[edit] Other Properties
Disney Regional Entertainment, a division of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, runs the ESPN Zone restaurants. It also operated the failed Club Disney and DisneyQuest concepts. (The first DisneyQuest location continues to operate at Walt Disney World Resort.)
The World of Disney stores, including the New York City location, are run by the merchandise division of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts.
Disney Vacation Club sells timeshares at several themed resorts within Walt Disney World Resort. It has two properties located outside the Florida resort, Disney's Hilton Head Island Resort and Disney's Vero Beach Resort.
Adventures by Disney is the operating name for a series of all-inclusive guided vacation tour packages run by Walt Disney Parks and Resorts.
[edit] Logos
 Disney Parks Worldwide Logo |
[edit] Abandoned concepts
Disney reportedly had plans to build a park named Disney's America. The park was to have been located in Virginia, but local opposition to the idea appears to have persuaded Disney not to go forward with it in 1994. [1]
Instead of Disney's California Adventure, Disney originally had announced plans for a West Coast version of Epcot, WestCOT, which was deemed too ambitious after the rocky financial performance of Euro Disney in France as well as protests by residents of Anaheim. Another concept for a Disney park in California was Disneysea, a contrasting park to Disneyland, to be built in Long Beach next to the RMS Queen Mary which Disney owned at the time. The park was to have led to a permanent West Coast ship in the Disney Cruise Line, which would dock at the park. The concept, although quickly scrapped, inspired the Imagineers to create Tokyo DisneySea, which has recently been deemed the second best-loved Disney park in the world, after Disneyland.
The Disney-MGM Studios Paris was a European copy of the movie theme park in Florida, to have opened in 1996 at the Euro Disney Resort (now Disneyland Resort Paris). Imagineers had been working on plans for six months before they were told to stop by management after the resort was drastically underperforming financially. The Walt Disney Studios Paris opened in 2002 after the resort started to make a profit, though was almost completely different from the plans for the Disney-MGM Studios Paris.
[edit] Future properties
Disney has made no announcements regarding plans for another American theme park and CEO Robert Iger frequently has cited international expansion as one of the company's three strategic priorities.
Both Hong Kong Disneyland Resort and Disneyland Resort Paris have room for future expansion. Hong Kong Disneyland has announced to reveal the new expansion plan in October, 2006. Scouts are looking for a suitable site for a Disney resort on mainland China in addition to the Disney resort in Hong Kong, possibly near Shanghai. Disney has announced that there will be no new resort on the Chinese mainland before 2010.
There have been plans to build a park in Singapore since the early 1990s, with the government offering a large 300-hectare site south of Lower Seletar Reservoir to Disney for development[1]. The plans fell through when the government was unwilling to sell the land at a marked-down price to Disney, and refused to co-fund the project's development. In September 2006, news reports indicated a resumption of talks, with Disney citing Singapore's use of the English language as its working language, and its central location in Southeast Asia as its strong points to build a park there. The government has reportedly offered a prime site in Marina East for building a park at a scale similar to the one in Tokyo. The company CEO Robert Iger's description of impending "indoor, compact"-styled parks may be a hint in reference to the Singaporean proposal[2].
Disney sent scouts to Australia in January 2005 to survey a new site.[citation needed] A likely site is just outside of Melbourne (rumored to be located on a site near Avalon).
India is another area where Disney may build a new resort. Disney has been expanding a lot of their companies into India by buying TV stations and bringing the brand name to the region.
The only site that is extremely short on land is Disneyland Resort in California. Although the company has acquired enough real estate to build a potential third theme park on a former strawberry farm near the existing resort, the remainder of the original Disneyland parking lot, now behind Disney's California Adventure, more than likely will be demolished eventually to expand the resort. The strawberry fields were purchased in 2004 for 99.9 million dollars with a requirement to harvest them for at least 5 years. It has been said that they will be turned into a water park once the 5 years are up.
While many foreign governments have made statements to the media that they have been in discussions with Disney to open a new resort, Disney frequently responds that the stories are false and talks have not taken place.
[edit] Timeline
[edit] 1950s and '60s
- 1954 - Plans for the Disneyland theme park in Anaheim, California, are released to the public
- 1955 - Disneyland is dedicated by company founder and namesake Walt Disney on July 17
- 1965 - Plans for the Florida Project (what would become Walt Disney World Resort) are released to the public in November
- 1966 - Walt Disney dies on December 15
- 1967 - Construction on Walt Disney World Resort begins.
[edit] 1970s and '80s
- 1971 - The Magic Kingdom opens on October 1 and is dedicated soon after by Roy O. Disney; Walt Disney World Resort begins operation with two resort hotels and a campground; Roy Disney dies
- 1982 - The second Walt Disney World theme park, EPCOT Center, opens on October 1
- 1983 - The first international Disney theme park, Tokyo Disneyland, opens in Urayasu, Japan
- 1984 - Michael Eisner is named Disney's CEO and soon begins an aggressive expansion of Disney's theme parks division
- 1989 - The third theme park at Walt Disney World Resort, Disney-MGM Studios, opens
[edit] 1990s
- 1992 - The second international Disney theme park, Euro Disneyland (now known as Disneyland Paris), opens in Marne-la-Vallée, France on April 12
- 1994 - Disney changes the name of Euro Disneyland to Disneyland Paris and EPCOT Center to Epcot
- 1995 - Disney announces plans for Disney's Animal Kingdom, the fourth Walt Disney World theme park
- 1997 - Disney announces Disney's California Adventure and Downtown Disney at the Disneyland Resort
- 1998 - Disney announces a five-year plan to open a new theme park at each of its resorts across the globe, beginning with the opening of Disney's Animal Kingdom on April 22; the Disney Magic begins operation on July 8
- 1999 - Plans are announced for a theme park in Hong Kong; the Disney Wonder cruise ship begins operation on August 15
[edit] 2000s
- 2001 - Disney's California Adventure and Downtown Disney open at Disneyland Resort; Tokyo DisneySea opens at Tokyo Disney Resort
- 2002 - Walt Disney Studios Paris opens as the second theme park in France; the entire property is renamed Disneyland Resort Paris
- 2005 - Disneyland celebrates its 50th anniversary as part of a worldwide jubilee among all Disney's theme parks worldwide; Hong Kong Disneyland Resort opens September 12 on Hong Kong's Lantau Island
- 2006 - The Happiest Homecoming on Earth as well as the Happiest Celebration on Earth ends, and immediately the Year of a Million Dreams promotional period at the Disneyland and Walt Disney World Resorts begins.
[edit] References
- ^ Disney park in Singapore could have been a reality. Retrieved on September 7, 2006.
- ^ Mickey at Marina?. Channel NewsAsia. Retrieved on September 8, 2006.
