While Disney Parks Chairman Josh D’Amaro has presented quite a few ideas for the theme parks over the next 10 years, interim CFO Kevin Lansberry just announced that those investments will be more heavily loaded in the “back half” of that timeframe.
We anticipate robust operating income growth at experiences to reflect strong performance at our international parks and Disney Cruise Line. While domestic parks and experiences is expecting solid growth for the full year, that growth will be heavily back-end loaded due to continued challenging comparisons in the first half of the year from the 50th anniversary at Walt Disney World, and inflation. We continue to be bullish. As evidenced by a recent announcement on significant investments we plan to make over the next 10 years to turbocharge growth in this area.
We expect those investments to ramp up towards the back half of that 10-year period with more gradual increases in the first few years.
As a reminder, Disney World is expected to receive $17 billion in investments over the next 10 years. This is an increase above and beyond expected inflation and represents a “bullish” outlook on the parks by Disney CEO Bob Iger. As a whole, the theme parks segment is expected to receive $60 billion over the next 10 years. That said, it looks like it will be a slow build with “gradual increases” in the first few years.
Disney will likely focus capital expenditures on the Disney Cruise line over the next few years and then increase spend in the theme parks as we approach 2030 and the few years after that.
Projects currently planned for the Walt Disney World theme parks include a complete retheme of DinoLand USA and an expansion at Magic Kingdom in a space “beyond Big Thunder Mountain“. Other projects such as the EPCOT overhaul project and Tiana’s Bayou Adventure are more immediate concerns.
On today’s call, Disney CEO Bob Iger said that Disney plans on turbocharging investments in the Experiences business, but it looks like theme park fans might have to be patient.
As always, keep checking back with us here at BlogMickey.com as we continue to bring you the latest news, photos, and info from around the Disney Parks!
Bullish Disney may be, but they are slow-walking the parks. Universal, meanwhile…