Disney CEO Speaks on Disneyland Reopening Plans

Walt Disney Co. reopens its two California theme parks on April 30 after they were dark for more than a year, a key step in the entertainment giant’s recovery from the pandemic. CEO Bob Chapek said he’s “thrilled” with future guest reservations. Watch below for more.

“I think it’s going to create a reemergence scenario where magic is going to be even greater for our guests when they do come back to our parks.”

Host: What are some of the new technologies that you’ve used over the last year that you think might stick around post pandemic? Will temperature screenings continue? For example, will you use the reservation system a lot more?

Chapek: Well, in addition to all the health guidelines that we’ve been following across the world, you know, masks, temperature checks, increased hygiene, six foot social distancing, we’re also going to be introducing a new reservation system. That’s going to enable our guests to have a great time no matter when they choose to come to Disney. Of course, nobody ever wants to go through a pandemic, but our teams here have been hard at work, making sure that when we reemerge that we’re going to do. So in a way that’s actually going to improve the guest experience even versus a pre pandemic situation. And our guest satisfaction scores, since we’ve reopened across the world, have shown that indeed our guests are even more satisfied than they were prior to the pandemic.

We’ve learned some things. We’ve learned to operate under constraints all the time by delivering this great save Disney magic that you expect. But, you know, we’ve been in a fortunate situation where we’ve had a lot of demand in the past. In many cases, that has exceeded what we can actually supply in terms of how many people we can put in a park. And there’s been no situation that’s been, you know, more like that than we’ve had upon reopening and really having to operate under some really tight constraints. But we’ve gotten even better. And better at it. And I think it’s going to create a reemergence scenario where magic is going to be even greater for our guests when they do come back to our parks.

*Bloomberg contributed to this article

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