Disney doubles down on Parks
September 19, 2023
Disney theme parks will make a reported $10 billion (€9.35bn) in profit this year – impressive considering the devastation wrought by the pandemic just a couple of years ago.
In the meantime, the video business is in choppy waters with the stock taking a welcome boost from all the talk of the group selling off ABC and ESPN. Reflecting this turn in fortunes Disney disclosed in a security filing, reports NYT, that it planned to spend roughly $60 billion over the next decade to expand its domestic and international parks and to continue building Disney Cruise Line. That amount is double what Disney spent on parks and the cruise line over the past decade, which was itself a period of greatly increased investment. And this is not withstanding its threat to cut the $17 billion expansion of the Florida park because of interference from Governor DeStantis.
In the past decade, Disney has opened the Shanghai Disney Resort, more than doubled its cruise line capacity and added rides based on intellectual properties like Star Wars, Guardians of the Galaxy, Tron, Avatar and Toy Story to its domestic parks. Disney has also poured money into its Paris and Hong Kong parks, with themed expansions tied to Frozen and other Disney films scheduled to open soon. Three more ocean liners are also on the way, bringing the Disney fleet to eight ships, and Disney is nearing completion of a another new port on a Bahamian island.