Mousekingdom Blog

It all sounds good if you read the top of Euro Disney SCA’s annual report for fiscal year 2008. A net profit of 2 million Euro and record attendance of 15,3 million people with a hotel occupancy of 91%. Impressive! But is it? Now let’s not get to judgemental as I do think the management team and Euro Disney SCA is going in the right direction. They are getting the people in, filling up the hotel rooms and making Disneyland Resort Paris an even more attractive place to visit. Why would they get 15.3 million visitors otherwise…

But not all the numbers are good (yet). There is the massive almost 2 billion loan and the outstanding royalties that one day will kick in and will be added to the expenses. A long road to go and make the company a healthy place.

Another number that needs to be looked at a little closer is the visitors Disneyland Resort Paris gets. 15.3 million includes every daily visit to Disneyland Park, but also to the Walt Disney Studios. If you enter one park in the morning and visit the other park in the afternoon it will be counted as 2 separate visits. With multiple visitors going from one park to the other these numbers are getting confusing and one would have to wonder how many people really come and visit the magical place in Paris. Sure, even so, it is an impressive growth and one they should be proud of, but will they be able to keep those numbers going up in the future as they did in fiscal year 2008.

The main reason for the visitors are the new additions the Studios has welcomed. Toon Studios with Crush and Cars, The Tower of Terror, Stitch live and even High School Musical brought in a whole lot more visitors to the Walt Disney Studios. The place has really grown and it looks like the guests are starting to love the place too.

But there lies the problem. New attractions bring in new visitors, new money, new profits and better numbers, once you stop adding on will the visitors return? With no big additions planned for 2009 and only the Ratatouille ride (rumored, but pretty sure at the moment) to be build in the near future those numbers might plummet again. It might be a doom scenario, or maybe it’s me who sees it in a negative light, but I think “if you don’t put new stuff in your shop nobody is going to visit and buy”. I really hope I am wrong and 2009 will get us to the 16 million mark!

With this said the next two shareholder meetings will be extremely interesting as, during the 2009 meeting, management will pitch there achievements and a colourful future (while I am sure some annalists in the room will question them), while the 2010 meeting could be another defence mode for the year (2009) they couldn’t repeat the 2008 numbers.

I could be wrong. I hope I am wrong. There is even a good chance that I am wrong and 2009 might be a continuation of what’s been te turn around for Disneyland Resort Paris, even without a new attraction.

One of the things that might bring even more locals and people from nearby countries is the fact that everything is getting expensive. People having less spending money, people can’t buy big cars or a new home anymore and people are traveling less. Why could that be good for Disneyland Resort Paris? Well, with so many people living close to the park more people might give up their extended holidays for a short visit to the park. Airfares are getting highly expensive and while it was affordable to fly to the states for a quick holiday and Orlando packet deals sometimes cheaper then a hop over to Disneyland Resort Paris (I speak especially for the UK market now), people might now stay a lot closer to home saving on the high airfares. The increase of visitor did come from France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. So could it be that this is an option for many?. It’s just something I thought about, just my two cents. I could be wrong (again)!

And one more thing about the high visitor numbers before I end my rant. There are indeed a lot of guests in the park, crowded at many moments. I do miss those times I walked in an almost deserted Disneyland! (but I guess the packed park is better for the future of the company)

You can read the full report here; Annual Results for Fiscal Year 2008 (pdf) and let us know what you think afterwards.

Picture via ClickMagique’s PicParade.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 24th, 2008 at 4:03 pm and is filed under Disney Company, Disney Theme Parks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.