UFCW 324 Communications / News
Disney Pleased with Anniversary Promotion Results
~ Ticket prices, room rates help boost parks' profit 51% in first quarter.
April 12, 2006 · Wire Services
Walt Disney Co.'s marketing campaign celebrating the 50th anniversary of the company's first theme park has exceeded expectations, said Parks and Resorts Chairman James Rasulo.
Burbank-based Disney has seen "pretty satisfying results" from the campaign it began in May, Rasulo said Tuesday in an interview from the Global Travel Tourism Summit in Washington. He didn't give a forecast for visitors drawn to the company's parks by the campaign or for revenue.
Disney raised ticket prices and room rates, created a new show and rides to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Disneyland in Anaheim. As a result, profit at the company's parks unit jumped 51 percent in the first quarter.
"What we've seen so far we're pretty happy with," Rasulo said. The anniversary celebration ends at the end of September.
The company's latest theme park opened in September in Hong Kong as a joint venture with the government and is going well, Rasulo said.
"It's in the very early days. We're open for six months, and profitability is not what we're focused on right now," he said.
Disney wants to open a park in Shanghai, Rasulo said.
"The Disney concept is very well embraced in Asia," he said. "I certainly think that with the economic growth in China, the size of its growing population and the sheer geography, that perhaps some day we could see a second Disney destination" in that country.