DarthEsquire
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- May 28, 2013
- Messages
- 65
For me, the Star Wars hotel sounds like a great experience (I'm sure that is a shock based on my name). Having worked at other theme parks and industries though I admit my immediate thought was what can the Star Wars hotel lead to. What IP would Disney most likely want to create a similar experience for?
In thinking about this, I first used the Force to reach inside me and explore my feelings about the Star Wars Galactic Starcruiser. Like I said at the beginning, for me this is the world I would want to be a part of. I know many people though who have never seen Star Wars and would have no interest in this experience. I also know it is not going to be an "affordable" experience which means there is a potentially limited customer base. However, it is also an extremely limited capacity experience which means Disney will be able to use that to their advantage for many years, so I don't think there is a danger of the experience becoming watered down early on. If you assume two "cruises" to start each week they could run five consecutive days, get both cruises done, and get every employee two days off. Alternatively, they could run a Monday-Wednesday, Wednesday-Friday, Friday-Sunday version to maximize stays. Even doing that, you are only looking at 300 parties per week, or about 15,600 per year. That is a maximum number of guests of just north of 60,000 people. In reality, that is less people than the Magic Kingdom holds on many days (the twenty million annual attendance comes out to around 54,000 people per day). If we also assume that the average cost for a “party” on the cruise is $5000 (although we have seen a large range of prices), that would be 78 million dollars per year. If there are 300 full time employees at $50,000 per year there (average pay of $25 per hour) there would be about 15 million in salary and 7 million in benefits so about 22 million dollars in labor off the top. Since this doesn’t account for extra sales (alcohol upgrades, lightsabers (which if only one person per cabin buys one at $300 each would be about 5 million dollars extra revenue per year), costumes, etc) the profitability potential is clear. Now all this money is obviously not going to be profit as there are still tons of expenses. Meals must be provided, maintenance, training, upkeep of experiences. I believe my staffing assumption may be a little low and the salary only represents an average. However, this shows the monetary potential to the park which leads to the initial question of what is next for the non-Star Wars fan if this experiment is successful?
The first answer that jumps to my mind is obviously Marvel. Two big hurdles I see to that are the restrictions on using Marvel properties on the east coast and that it would be another action-adventure type theme. With the cost of these opportunities, a large subset of Disney visitors will instead want something more relaxing and luxurious for the cost. Many guests won’t want a storyline to dive into so what would be a more low-key event where a larger group of Disney fans could have their interest piqued?
So, after all that preamble here is the idea. The next Disney “experiential” hotel will be the Royal Wedding of Queen Anna to Kristoff. Same basic idea of it being two nights and three days. At the conclusion of day one (check in day) there is the rehearsal dinner. At the conclusion of day two there is the wedding. They could cross-invite characters from other films. This could become the ultimate Princess meet and greet as they would all attend the wedding (we would ignore the concept of years and time for this). I think this would also allow for multiple storylines to be able to play out, all kicked off by the events of the first day where the wedding guests would be recruited into roles. If you want to be part of the wedding party or participate in luxurious wedding events that would be one “adventure.” Some people may just choose the luxury of a spa day. For the more adventurous, there could be a pirate adventure (recruited to the Black Pearl to cause chaos with the wedding), mysteries to solve (like escape rooms), or even a “hunting” excursion led by a character such as Gaston (or some of the Princes) or Merida where a bad guy is captured. You would still be able to have the nursery childcare type activities for kids and leave enough “resort” options for guests who don’t want a storyline. Your main extra charge here could be a massive Bippidi Boppidi Boutique. At the end, there is some culminating large event at the wedding where the story lines converge.
While I think there are chances for an interactive experience like Toy Story or universes based on other Disney IP, I believe this would be the most logical next play for the parks. Any fans, or other thoughts?
Note: I realize I made up all the numbers so people may differ greatly with me on how they think some of that could apply. Revenue will be much higher based on upgrade and extra charge sales, but I was just trying to set a baseline.
In thinking about this, I first used the Force to reach inside me and explore my feelings about the Star Wars Galactic Starcruiser. Like I said at the beginning, for me this is the world I would want to be a part of. I know many people though who have never seen Star Wars and would have no interest in this experience. I also know it is not going to be an "affordable" experience which means there is a potentially limited customer base. However, it is also an extremely limited capacity experience which means Disney will be able to use that to their advantage for many years, so I don't think there is a danger of the experience becoming watered down early on. If you assume two "cruises" to start each week they could run five consecutive days, get both cruises done, and get every employee two days off. Alternatively, they could run a Monday-Wednesday, Wednesday-Friday, Friday-Sunday version to maximize stays. Even doing that, you are only looking at 300 parties per week, or about 15,600 per year. That is a maximum number of guests of just north of 60,000 people. In reality, that is less people than the Magic Kingdom holds on many days (the twenty million annual attendance comes out to around 54,000 people per day). If we also assume that the average cost for a “party” on the cruise is $5000 (although we have seen a large range of prices), that would be 78 million dollars per year. If there are 300 full time employees at $50,000 per year there (average pay of $25 per hour) there would be about 15 million in salary and 7 million in benefits so about 22 million dollars in labor off the top. Since this doesn’t account for extra sales (alcohol upgrades, lightsabers (which if only one person per cabin buys one at $300 each would be about 5 million dollars extra revenue per year), costumes, etc) the profitability potential is clear. Now all this money is obviously not going to be profit as there are still tons of expenses. Meals must be provided, maintenance, training, upkeep of experiences. I believe my staffing assumption may be a little low and the salary only represents an average. However, this shows the monetary potential to the park which leads to the initial question of what is next for the non-Star Wars fan if this experiment is successful?
The first answer that jumps to my mind is obviously Marvel. Two big hurdles I see to that are the restrictions on using Marvel properties on the east coast and that it would be another action-adventure type theme. With the cost of these opportunities, a large subset of Disney visitors will instead want something more relaxing and luxurious for the cost. Many guests won’t want a storyline to dive into so what would be a more low-key event where a larger group of Disney fans could have their interest piqued?
So, after all that preamble here is the idea. The next Disney “experiential” hotel will be the Royal Wedding of Queen Anna to Kristoff. Same basic idea of it being two nights and three days. At the conclusion of day one (check in day) there is the rehearsal dinner. At the conclusion of day two there is the wedding. They could cross-invite characters from other films. This could become the ultimate Princess meet and greet as they would all attend the wedding (we would ignore the concept of years and time for this). I think this would also allow for multiple storylines to be able to play out, all kicked off by the events of the first day where the wedding guests would be recruited into roles. If you want to be part of the wedding party or participate in luxurious wedding events that would be one “adventure.” Some people may just choose the luxury of a spa day. For the more adventurous, there could be a pirate adventure (recruited to the Black Pearl to cause chaos with the wedding), mysteries to solve (like escape rooms), or even a “hunting” excursion led by a character such as Gaston (or some of the Princes) or Merida where a bad guy is captured. You would still be able to have the nursery childcare type activities for kids and leave enough “resort” options for guests who don’t want a storyline. Your main extra charge here could be a massive Bippidi Boppidi Boutique. At the end, there is some culminating large event at the wedding where the story lines converge.
While I think there are chances for an interactive experience like Toy Story or universes based on other Disney IP, I believe this would be the most logical next play for the parks. Any fans, or other thoughts?
Note: I realize I made up all the numbers so people may differ greatly with me on how they think some of that could apply. Revenue will be much higher based on upgrade and extra charge sales, but I was just trying to set a baseline.
But I know people who would pay big money for something like that!!!!
