Disney Parks & Resorts senior vice president George Aguel recently spoke with MeetingNews editor Seth Harris about the company's expansion plans, the growth of the Disney Institute and the developing rebound of the meetings industry.
MeetingNews: Hotels have offered steep discounts to lure meeting business. Have you used similar tactics?
George Aguel: Not in the same way. We philosophically feel that when you are taking that tactic, it's not necessarily good. If a company simply is not going to have a program, it doesn't matter what inducements a hotel puts out there, it's not going to make it run that meeting. Certain suppliers would have to admit that it probably didn't drive any new incremental business as a result. On top of providing value for all the things you'd like to do, we'll provide an evening for you and your attendees. As our guest, come to our theme parks, which we know are unique, and have a meal compliments of us. Then we let you go in with your peers and guests and spend some time. This is something we launched not long ago. It's something we are looking at maintaining for a while because we've been getting such a great reaction.
We also went out to organizers and said, "Let us set up a collaborative session that we can put together for you. No obligation. No cost. We just want to give you an opportunity to sit down with some unique professionals and creative minds—who you might have had to go out and spend a lot of money on—to help you think about your business and what you're going to accomplish."
MN: How has the recent negative public perception of meetings affected your business?
Aguel: I don't think anyone was prepared. You had a public discourse about the meetings industry, which was unprecedented. You couple that with the economic circumstances and it was unlike anything seen before. Oftentimes, we use the word "unprecedented" and it truly may not have been that, but this time for sure it was.
That said, we've seen things stabilize in a major way. The industry is confident that we've at least put that volatility behind us. Now, it's about the confidence level that organizations have toward the economy. We are starting to see that move in the right direction. Although Disney was impacted for sure by it, we didn't get impacted to the same degree as others. We've been able to help some of these organizations see the contribution we can make if they kept their programs, and many of them did. For sure, it was a big issue for us, as it was for everybody else.
MN: Have there been any changes recently to Disney's group sales strategy?
Aguel: I've been at the company 19 years. This wouldn't be the first time we've seen a downturn. In each case, we've taken the occasion to remind people that Disney does bring a unique element. We are refocusing on the value of groups coming to and experiencing our locations. At the same time, we're going out with businesses like the Disney Institute to keep reinforcing our message about our brand. We can take the creative power and the people who reside in our organization and do more than just talk with planners about their business in the sense of, here is the meeting space, venue and room rates—all the kind of basic things everyone does—and collaborate with them creatively.
MN: What is the current footprint of the Disney Institute and where do you see it going?
Aguel: We're taking the Disney Institute, our professional development business, and growing it dramatically globally to provide training and expertise to organizations. That business generates a lot of value for us. It really extends our brand into a lot of audiences from all walks of life, in terms of executive and management circles. It also provides a great deal of positive exposure for what makes Disney unique and how we manage to lead and take care of our cast members and drive great service.
It's always had its origins and main base of operations at Walt Disney World. We went off to Disneyland a few years ago and planted a footprint and established ourselves there. Now, we are looking at making sure we do that for the rest of our sites and internationally. We launched recently an initiative with Learning Tree in the space of training and development. We'll bring our programming to their learning centers all over the country. Recently, we launched a collaborative effort with Harvard to deliver programming. These types of strategic partnerships establish the ability to operate our business anywhere in the world.
MN: What are some of the major growth plans for Disney Parks & Resorts?
Aguel: One we'll be talking a lot more about is our big new resort in Hawaii. This is unusual for us because our hotels are typically located at our theme park locations. Here we'll open in a couple of years a resort that won't be attached to a theme park, but in a spectacular location in Hawaii.
We are more than doubling the size of our capacity on the cruise lines. We are building two new, huge, significant and attractive ships that will start coming online in the beginning of 2011.We'll also now be able to enhance our itineraries and frequencies in the Los Angeles area as well as Northern European areas.
We also just announced that we are going to dramatically expand our Hong Kong Disneyland location, and we keep making additions to our property in Paris, which has done very well.
At Walt Disney World, we have many new attractions. At the Contemporary Resort, we are opening a new tower. At Animal Kingdom, we added an almost 500-room addition.
We also purchased land at the National Harbor in Washington, which shows our businesses extending beyond theme parks. We are literally putting a billion-dollar investment into Disneyland's California Adventure theme park. We also added 250 rooms at the Grand Californian.
MN:What is your future outlook on the meetings business?
Aguel: It is coming back. We are seeing many favorable indications. If anybody said it's coming back like a hockey stick, they'd be lying. There is no way it will be like that under any circumstances. If we look back to the early '90s downturn, by no means did it come back overnight. This will be a slow but steady climb. It will take a while. Many in the industry speculate that will be more favorable in '10. Better, but not great. Most might say that '11 is where it will start to be a lot better. At that point, based on past history, '12 will feel really good. That's realistically the curve that we are more likely to see. As long as it goes in the right direction, everybody will be able to work through that.
Originally published Aug. 10, 2009