Dive brief:
- Amusement park and attraction giant Walt Disney Co. is nearly doubling its investment in its Parks, Experiences and Products segment to nearly $60 billion over the next decade, according to the company. announced on September 19.
- Through this investment, Disney will expand and improve its domestic and international parks and the capacity of its cruise lines. Disney CEO Robert Iger said the business was “incredibly aware” of its financial base and the need to grow its bottom line.
- The company said it has more than 1,000 acres of land ready for potential future development at its existing sites, or the equivalent of seven new Disneyland parks. Iger he noted that past investments have led to periods of sustained growth. “We are planning to drive our growth once again with a significant amount of strategic investment in this business,” Iger said
Diving knowledge:
The announcement was formalized by a Securities and Exchange Commission Filing of Form 8-K that Disney entered on Tuesday, which detailed its plan. In the filing, the company also noted that it will prioritize projects it believes will generate strong returns.
According to the announcement, Disney divided its focus areas into three parts: stories, scale and fans, which translates into leveraging newer intellectual properties, such as recent films, on their sites, growing the your properties and targeting new visitors and customers.
An additional part of Disney’s growth efforts is targeting the approximately 700 million people the company brands as “fans” who have never been to a Disney theme park and adding newer intellectual property, such as recently released movies, in existing theme parks. and cruise lines.
The company is currently wrapping up a multi-year expansion and redevelopment of its Epcot theme park in Orlando, Florida. Other upcoming renovations include a replacement for Splash Mountain at both Disneyland and Walt Disney World called Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, according to the Wandering in Disney blog.
Ways of growth
For the present and the near-term future, Disney is high on its cruise service, which is expanding globally — visiting Australia and New Zealand for the first time this year, according to the announcement. The company will also nearly double the global capacity of its cruise line, adding two ships and a new home port in Singapore in 2025 and one more ship in 2026.
Disney highlighted the performance of its Asian parks in the wake of the pandemic. He said both Shanghai Disney Resort and Hong Kong Disneyland have great opportunities for growth when expansions at each location open later this year.
The expansion news comes amid a period of relative financial declines for the conglomerate. In August, Disney shares fell to its lowest point in nine years, according to Reuters, after Iger’s promises to raise streaming prices for services like Disney+, run more ads and cut costs across the business. In addition, the company scrapped plans for billion-dollar campus in Orlando, Florida, amid his public feud with Gov. Ron DeSantis.
