Originally Posted By leemac <<Also, from what your saying, as far as WDW is concerned, we are more likely to get a new sitdown restaurant rather than seeing a preexisting restaurant renovated. As a fan and quest it makes little sense to me that valuable real estate in the form of sitdown restaurants in Adventureland, Tomorrowland, and Liberty Square remain idle, empty, or are only open seasonally. And instead we get another sitdown restaurant in the New Fantasyland reclaimation project.>> Tom - you raise a very valid point. Every F&B and merchandise location needs to stand on its own feet now - each is individually assessed. Years ago parks could carry under-performing outlets as management only saw the total spend inside the berm. Now every single location (and even zones within some locations) are individually assessed for profitability against other venue. Tomorrowland Terrace is a perfect example - it is "seasonal" as it doesn't make sufficient profit. F&B have tried to try other offerings in that location like the noodle bar but guests didn't respond. There is a captive market so if the Terrace isn't making sufficient profit then closing it will push guests to more profitability locations. F&B operate and staff locations based on forecast demand - if MK is forecast for a 40k attendance day then that will push F&B to shutter the least profitability locations (which usually means the non-burger joints). Terrace is a huge venue and ultimately I'd like to see that real estate put to better use but that isn't likely any time soon. Be Our Guest restaurant will quickly become the most profitable F&B facility on property - it is character-themed and will be phenomenally popular. The success of Be Our Guest will have limited impact on other F&B locations - it isn't likely to steal their traffic as in theory FLE has been approved on the incremental attendance increases. So the survival of other borderline F&B locations won't be dependent on Be Our Guest.
Originally Posted By leemac ^^ yikes - loads of typos - sorry. I hope my point is still clear enough.
Originally Posted By Kennesaw Tom I know what your saying leemac. But, virtually any business move can be justified through accounting tricks. Nothing new there. Obviously, I don't agree with all of the Disney Companys business decisions at the time or even now in hindsight. When the WDW is taking away dining venues and menu items accross the broad spectrum of its resorts. Its little comfort when Disney accounces a new sitdown restaurant in Fantasyland, let alone watching park attractions and its established features like the monorail, lanquish. Despite the WDW parks lanquishing and getting stale. I guess as long as I can grasp my Disney RFID chip refillable mug, in WDW management's eyes I should be happy. Again, not asking you to defend the Disney Company's decisions here..... just saying> IMHO, I don't think it has helped the WDW parks or former Pleasure Island area much.
Originally Posted By Kennesaw Tom Gosh, with these posts you would never know I am actually all excited since I will be on vacation at WDW a week from now! LOL! I have already told my mom she can hang out with me. She doesn't want to do any parks. I'm thinking of resort hopping! I definately plan on taking lots and lots of pics inside and out of the Villas at the Wilderness Lodge. Since I'm in the process of tearing down my mountain home and building a new one that will resemble the Villas at the Wilderness Lodge.... I purchased a new digital camera, 18 megapixel 10X zoom. I plan on taking pictures of every detail and architectural feature.
Originally Posted By dagobert Since this topic is about Star Wars, I guess this rumour fits here very well. <a href="http://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/columns/ransquawk/11137/us-equities-opening-headlines-including-disney-rumored-to-be-eyeing-hasbro-11137.html" target="_blank">http://www.proactiveinvestors....137.html</a> I really can't believe Disney is thinking of buying Hasbro. The Lucasfilm purchase is driving people crazy.
Originally Posted By leemac <<When the WDW is taking away dining venues and menu items accross the broad spectrum of its resorts.>> Unfortunately the advent of IT systems like SAP have made these decisions too easy. Take a F&B location like Tomorrowland Terrace. F&B know exactly what it costs to operate the location (mainly staffing, consumerables and wear and tear on the facility) and they know exactly what comes through the cash register. Therefore they can calculate the margin on every single product line and determine what works and what doesn't. F&B isn't rocket science - to improve profitability they either need to increase their prices (but that could impact the number of sales) or reduce their costs. The homogenization of menus across the parks means that they are getting higher volumes of higher margin products - so it is in their best interests to push their generic burgers and hot dogs as they can squeeze suppliers if they can move their sales from say 10m annually to 12m. Uniqueness isn't rewarded as that has a cost. Coffee is a perfect example. WDW Co. resisted making any changes to its coffee offering for years as it is over 90% gross margin ($2.09 coffee has very little coffee in it). It made absolutely no sense for F&B to improve the product as guests were still buying it even when they watered it down even more and increased the price. Starbucks was always a no-brainer to me - virtually every guest now drinks premium coffee in some way and the brand fits well with Disney. However F&B didn't want to see their margins slip. For some reason that I'll never understand all of the dedicated coffee stands inside the WDW parks were outsourced to Joffreys in the first place (I think that deal was around '93 or so).
Originally Posted By leemac <<Take a F&B location like Tomorrowland Terrace. F&B know exactly what it costs to operate the location (mainly staffing, consumerables and wear and tear on the facility) and they know exactly what comes through the cash register. Therefore they can calculate the margin on every single product line and determine what works and what doesn't.>> Here's one of your accounting tricks that has no real application: If TT operates then a depreciation charge hits the income statement for the location - think wear and tear on all of the kitchen equipments, registers and seating. If the location isn't operating then there is no depreciation charge so that works to their benefit. That is despite the fact that the equipment can't reasonably be used elsewhere (as every location needs them irrespective of whether it is open 1 hour or 24/7) and that it is still ageing. Those non-cash expenses can be adjusted out to get to cashflow metrics but they won't affect the total profitability of the location except for EBITDA and above. Perfect sense.
Originally Posted By leemac <<Since this topic is about Star Wars, I guess this rumour fits here very well.>> I seem to have derailed this discussion! Back to your regular programming....
Originally Posted By dagobert >>>I seem to have derailed this discussion! Back to your regular programming....<<< No, it's very interesting, and I'm still far behind to catch up here. I just wanted to share the Hasbro rumour, which sounds silly to me. So keep writing!!
Originally Posted By leemac <<I just wanted to share the Hasbro rumour, which sounds silly to me.>> Back in the day Eisner had the strategic planning guys (specifically Meg Whitman) run the ruler over Mattel to see if buying a toy manufacturer made sense. The conclusion was that Disney made more money as a consumer goods licensor than it would as a manufacturer. Far less risky and still profitable. I'd be surprised if that view has changed - even though DCP has been folded into the Studio Entertainment business unit. Hasbro has a market cap of about $5bn - which is broadly where it was 5 years ago - plus debt you are looking at a number around $6bn. That is a chunk of change - especially for a company that also manufactures toys for other brands like Angry Birds. I would guarantee that the anti-trust authorities and the FCC would look at a Disney/Hasbro combo closely due to Hasbro's JV with Discovery Comm (The Hub).
Originally Posted By HokieSkipper The Hasbro rumor was seemingly debunked today on CNBC. Analysts have said news of the deal was "News to Hasbro bankers."
Originally Posted By leemac <<The Hasbro rumor was seemingly debunked today on CNBC.>> I'm sure someone was either looking to goose up the share price or simply looked at their product list and thought it was a natural fit. I don't think Hasbro break out the financials by product line but considering they have a multitude of Disney/Marvel/Pixar/Indian Jones/Star Wars licences I'm sure that was the alleged hook. Transformers in MK's Tomorrowland? )))
Originally Posted By dagobert Do you think Disney will bring more Star Wars rides to the parks in the near future? I can imagine that it will already be part of Shanghai.
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt "Please. We have photographic evidence of you with Duffy, your favorite Disney character. Don't try pretending to be all anti-Ewok, Hans. It's not fooling anyone." LOL!!
