Why does everyone love Disney World?

Disney is one of the most magical places on this planet and don't even try to tell Jamie and Noreen that people past the age of 10 shouldn't still love it (it's kind of Jamie's hill to die on). It's their love of that media conglomerate and a Magic Kingdom that gets the ladies talking this week, although hot take: maybe the magic behind Disney's success is just flawless customer service and a heightened attention to detail? Full deets on that, right here. 

Articles Referenced:
AmandaLui.com - "Imagineering Information"

MagicGuides.com - "Disney World Statistics"

DisneyNews.us - "Disney Parks Attendance"

Forbes.com - "The Secrets Behind Disney's 2.2 billion Theme Park Profits"

AllEars.net - "5 Things You Won't Believe About Disney Trash"

Qualtrics.com - "6 Ways Disney World Delivers Top Customer Experiences"

AllEars.net - "9 Reasons People Keep Going Back to Walt Disney World"

BetterMarketing.pub - "The Secret of Disney's Brand"

Transcript

Ask a Question (explain why we chose topic)

• Why does everyone love Disney World? What makes us keep coming back despite the parks largely remaining the same?

Research Background Info (present data and articles)

• AmandaLui.com graphic - "Imagineering Information"
• MagicGuides.com statistics - "Disney World Statistics"
• DisneyNews.us statistics - "Disney Parks Attendance"
• Forbes.com article - "The Secrets Behind Disney's $2.2 billion Theme Park Profits"
• AllEars.net article - "5 Things You Won't Believe About Disney Trash"
• Qualtrics.com article - "6 Ways Disney World Delivers Top Customer Experiences"
• AllEars.net article - "9 Reasons People Keep Going Back to Walt Disney World"
• BetterMarketing.pub article - "The Secret of Disney's Brand"

Hypothesis / Unique Angle (state our angle on the topic/data)

• Disney uses their attention to detail and nostalgia connected to their movies and prior trips to Disney parks to convince people to keep coming back to the parks time and time again

Analyze Data (deep dive into data)

Basics of Disney Resorts

First things first, if you don’t spend all your money at Disney World like us, let us explain it a little bit:

• Besides its movies and media, Disney has a business line for their resorts and more physical entertainment methods - they call this business sector “Parks, Experiences, and Products”
  • There are 6 Disney amusement park locations
    • Disneyland (1955)
    • Disney World (1971)
    • Tokyo Disney (1983)
    • Disneyland Paris (1992)
    • Hong Kong Disneyland (2005)
    • Shanghai Disney (2016)
  • Disney World is the largest as it is legitimately a “world” with multiple parks inside of it
    • Magic Kingdom (1971) is the traditional amusement park with the castle, different themed lands, and more classic movie rides
    • EPCOT (1982) has future world with futuristic type rides and shows and the world showcase with many different countries
    • Hollywood Studios (1989) has movie themed rides and shows
    • Animal Kingdom (1998) has live animals and animal based rides
    • Two water parks - Typhoon Lagoon (1989) & Blizzard Beach (1995)
    • All other kinds of entertainment such as golf courses, boat rentals, tours, shopping/dining area, many sporting event fields, etc.
    • Each hotel also has a lot of activities such as pools, restaurants, arcades, movie showings, etc.
  • Disney also has a line of cruises and other resorts such as Aulani in Hawaii and Adventures by Disney vacation packages
  • *Basically they are just experts at the hospitality industry*

Stats on the Parks & Their Popularity

Now, let’s go through the stats for Disney World to show just how popular it is:

• Disney World is huge: “Walt Disney World covers 27,258 acres (43 square miles) – about the same area as all of San Francisco and two times the size of Manhattan”
  • “The Florida swampland which is now home to Disney World was purchased by Walt Disney during the mid-1960s for only $5 million dollars.”
• “In total, Disney World has over 30,000 hotel rooms, 409 wilderness cabins, 799 campsites, and 3,293 DVC units”
• “Every year, Disney World serves 10 million hamburgers, 6 million hot dogs, 9 million pounds of French fries, 300,000 pounds of popcorn, and 1.6 million turkey drumsticks.”
• “An average of 250,000 guests travel daily to and from various WDW properties via the 400+ buses, 12 monorail trains, and the fleet of water taxis and boats owned by Disney.”
• “There are nearly 70,000 Cast Members throughout the Disney World resort, which makes it the biggest single-site employer in the United States.”
• Annual visitors for each park varied with Magic Kingdom getting the most and Hollywood studios getting the least:

Why Are the Parks So Successful in Drawing Us In

There are three main things (that Jamie has identified) that draw us in: quality, entertainment, and emotional connection

Quality

• Their parks are clean & family friendly
  • “[Walt Disney’s] motivation [for making Disneyland] was the lack of entertainment options available to him and his two young daughters… The amusement parks of his era had few rides that parents could enjoy with their children and they were often dirty and unsafe.”
    • This is something my dad always used to go on about because he would compare Disney to Six Flags being dirtier and less family friendly
  • Most attractions can be enjoyed by the whole family
    • Most rides (except rollercoasters and such) are mild enough for everyone from the baby to the grandparents
    • There are also many types of attractions that are not rides so they are truly accessible to the whole family - character meet and greets, shows, parades 
  • Disneyland / Magic Kingdom were literally designed to be clean
    • Walt invented the garbage can with a lid and swinging opening to contain the smell and look nicer
    • The garbage cans in Disney are painted and fun and fit the theme of the area (I have taken photos with garbage cans before and they sell garbage can merchandise)
    • You’re never more than 30 ft from a garbage can - different theories on this are that they gave candy to people and waited for them to drop the wrapper or that Walt knew how many steps it took for him to finish his hotdog
    • Magic Kingdom has a system of tubes that moves trash underground - “...an average of more than 80,000 pounds of garbage run through the system every single day. And that’s just at the Magic Kingdom park! According to a report from the Reedy Creek Improvement District, which oversees Disney World operations, more than 110,000 TONS of solid waste were discarded in 2017.”
• They take customer service very seriously
  • To begin with, their staff is very knowledgeable: “New employees actually go through six weeks of training before they even see a guest. During training, Disney focuses on an experience mentality, rather than a task mentality.”
  • They then make each guest’s trip personalized: “When guests arrive to pick up their tickets, they can get a button that tells why they’re celebrating at Disney World, whether it be a birthday, marriage, retirement, or first time visiting. They aim to treat each guest individually and create personal interactions.”
    • This is aided by their mobile app which contains park hours, maps, real time walking directions, showtimes, wait times for rides, and the ability to order food to ease customer experience. It also has your schedule of fast passes and dining reservations to lay out your plan for the day and has any photos taken by Photopass cast members
  • “Bruce Jones, Senior Director, Disney Institute, said “When our Cast Members know their primary goal is to create happiness, they are empowered to create what we like to call magical moments. From our park greeters to our attraction attendants, every employee makes decisions regarding a guest interaction centered on this key theme of ‘creating happiness.’”
  • “Disney creates emotional connections with all its customers. They’re not just selling rides, but creating an experience…  People will always remember the way you made them feel and by taking advantage of every opportunity to delight your customer, you will create lifelong customers.”
  • You know that no matter where you go, you’re going to get the same level of Disney customer service

Entertainment

• OPTIONS
  • As we’ve been mentioning, you have a million options when thinking of a Disney vacation
  • First of all, you can pick between the 6 different amusement park sites all around the world or one of the more non-traditional sites such as a cruise or spa resort 
  • Once deciding on Disney World in particular, you have the choice between parks with all different rides, special events (such as the EPCOT Wine and Food Festival or Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party at Magic Kingdom), special tours, staying at/going to different resorts with different themes, golf courses, water sport activities, restaurants, world class shows, etc. etc. etc.
  • You could never possibly see everything that all the Disney sites have to offer so it can never get old
• Rides are not the typical amusement park rides plus there are many other types of entertainment at the park besides rides
  • By incorporating stories into the rides and attractions, we get emotionally connected on a different level than just a regular amusement park ride or show - the queues have stories, the rides are based on movies, etc. - it’s all connected
  • “For some, these rides create an emotional response.  Others just love them because they’re the biggest, longest, or fastest. The point is that people return to the parks so they can have the opportunity to experience their favorite ride again and again.”
  • “As an article from Forbes states, ‘Disney’s ‘content marketing’ strategy goes in reverse compared to most brands. Meaning, where most brands start with a physical product and then build a story around it in the form of ‘content marketing,’ companies like Disney do exactly the opposite.’ This is how Disney has separated itself from its peers. By adopting such a simple strategy, the company has differentiated itself in a saturated market.”
  • Kids can enjoy meeting their favorite characters, there are parades, spur of the moment shows in the walking areas - all things that don’t happen at other parks
• They pay hyper attention to details
  • **I really think this is the key to their success, nothing else would work without this**
  • “It is common to see guests tapping the antiques fastened to shelves in the turn-of-the-century arcades to see if they are real or plastic copies. Disney generally follows the principle that anything within touching distance should be real whilst objects out of arm’s reach just have to look real. It is this attention to detail which keeps guests coming back”
  • “The rides are so dense with detailed authentic touches that repeat visits are needed to see it all.”
  • “This means that people who have visited the parks multiple times can still look around and spot something new that they never noticed before.”
  • “In her book, Jody Jean Dreyer describes a patented machine called the “Smellitzer” that Disney uses at its parks. The scent-emitting machine creates a variety of aromas to match different locations around the park. As the article from Fast Company states, ‘even the wafts of popcorn along Main Street U.S.A. are by design.’”

Emotions

• At the center of each park there is a central focal point to draw people in
  • Each park has a signature structure that people take photos with (Magic Kingdom/Disneyland/parks in other countries have a castle, Epcot has the ball, Animal Kingdom has the tree of life)
  • The structures are large and awe inspiring, can be seen from far away, and aid in creating excitement as you walk towards them
  • In modern times these structures give people the opportunity to post photos on social media so everyone knows where they are instantly and can be jealous that they’re not there too
• They hit us in the nostalgic feels
  • In 2014, “Magic Kingdom in Orlando completed a multi-year expansion of its Fantasyland area and it had a noticeable impact according to Brian Sands, vice president of economics for the Americas at AECOM. “We estimate that the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World in Florida grew by nearly 6.0 percent... Driving this were the renovation and significant expansion of Fantasyland. This investment built strongly on Disney’s traditional focus on families with young children, leveraging recent movie and DVD releases.”
    • This expansion was the Be Our Guest restaurant, Gaston’s Tavern, 7 Dwarfs Mine Train, Journey of the Little Mermaid
    • Be Our Guest is a great example of how they get us to come back repeatedly - its has three different themed rooms and different menus for lunch and dinner, meaning if you wanted to see and eat it all you would have to go up to 6 times
  • “For much of Disney’s audience, nostalgia remains a driving force behind annual revenue. Consumers who experienced the power of Disney in their childhood want to be reminded of those feelings. They don’t want a new Disney; they want the Disney that they grew up loving as a child.”
• They use all of their business lines to keep us in a consumption cycle
  • “The DVDs and merchandise sold in the gift shops promote Disney’s TV shows just as the rides themselves act like teasers for the big screen movies they are based on… In turn, the profits produced by the parks are used to invest in new rides which draw in more guests and promote the movies. At the same time, the movies and merchandise on sale outside the parks attracts guests to them and the entire cycle begins again. It is a well-oiled process which can have a huge impact.”
• You can go there to escape reality
  • Honestly this is something we could all use rn
  • “The parks allow us to go beyond our usual realities. We can be pirates in Adventureland or we can visit Japan, or we can do BOTH… all in one day. The Disney World resorts are the same. Wilderness Lodge makes you believe you’re exploring the Pacific Northwest, while the Polynesian Village Resort transports you to a South Seas tropical island.”
    • This goes back to attention to detail - all the details combine to make you feel like you’re not in reality

Conclusions on Data (our opinion on what data says)

• Just like Apple, we will pay way too much to go to Disney - we also know it isn’t affordable for everyone
• All of this combined means that we make incredible memories that we remember forever - it makes us feel connected to family, friends, our own childhood - essentially being in Disney brings us back to a simpler time of happiness