It appears the Walt Disney Company and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis are back in business. After an ongoing feud between the two and the nullification of a lawsuit over how Disney can grow its footprint in Florida, the entertainment giant announced new plans to expand.
The DeSantis-appointed board overseeing the rebranded Central Florida Central Florida Tourism Oversight District recently agreed to allow Disney to move forward with its long-held plans to invest up to $17 billion in its Orlando resort. According to Forbes, “the plans include potentially expanding Disney’s footprint with a fifth major theme park as well as adding two smaller parks (such as waterparks) and hotels.”
If you would like more context on this matter, please consider Larry Yu, a professor of hospitality management at the GW School of Business. Yu’s current research focuses on hotel market analysis, tourism product value chain analysis, tourist satisfaction and hospitality crisis management. Yu says this is great news for Florida, since Disney’s expansion will continue to provide economic and social benefits to the state tourism businesses, government tax revenues and local communities in affordable housing.
“However, I do not think the Walt Disney Company will build a new theme park in Disney Orlando Resort any time soon. Unlike Universal Resort which is undertaking a big project with five attractions (Celestial Park, How to Train Your Dragon, Dark Universe, The Wizarding World of Harry Porter, Super Nintendo World), Walt Disney has been pursuing a strategy of staggering its launch of main attractions to appeal to new and repeat visitors. For example, Epcot transformation has most been completed and the new Mary Poppins attraction at Epcot is under development. In addition, Country Bear Jamboree show at Magic Kingdom will be featured by country bears and is scheduled to open in mid-July 2024. Splash Mountain at Magic Kingdom is now replaced by Tiana’s Bayou Adventure and is scheduled to open later this month. Finally, there are plans for expanding Big Thunder Mountain Railroad in Magic Kingdom and replacing Dinoland with Tropic Americas in Animal Kingdom in the next few years. Clearly, WDW has been focusing on changing, refreshing and Imagineering its attractions strategically.”
“From market demand perspective, the typical length of stay at theme parks in Orlando is 4 – 7 days. With more attractions coming to the market, such as Universal Epic Universe, visitors will have limited time to visit all attractions, Walt Disney will need to perform a thorough market analysis to determine the feasibility of building a new theme park even though it has the land, investment and a potential compelling story for a new park.”
If you would like to speak with Professor Yu, please contact GW Media Relations Specialist Cate Douglass at cdouglass
gwu [dot] edu (cdouglass[at]gwu[dot]edu).
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