I’m working on a new project at work and as part of the research I had to go to Disney World, FL. I know. Tough going ain’t it?
The project is focused on children’s services and we were looking for examples of ‘best in class’ and who knows kids better than Walt?
As we walked around the resort, I saw tons of odd things; people endlessly waiting in lines seemingly for no reason, with no visible end in sight; hundreds and hundreds of parental units being more dorky than their kids; ugly young couples dressed in Disney wedding outfits spending their honeymoon’s in the Magic Kingdom and many more. One of the creepiest exhibits was the “Carousel of Progress” which sounded like the sequel to Tom Kelley’s book.
Oh, btw: Space Mountain. It never gets old. Splash Mountain never gets old either.
We stayed also at the new Michael Graves designed hotel, the Walt Disney World Dolphin Hotel. The site gives you a good picture. It was one of the most garish, overly treated, surface level designed spaces I’ve ever been in. Very overpriced and very disapointing. Even though it’s new, there were many very wrong, 80s colour palettes and checked patterns; enough to remind me of that Steve Gutenburg classic, ‘Three Men and a Baby”.
I had the “pleasure” of working in Disney World for a year. And let me tell you, I got to see plenty of what you just mentioned. I think the endless lines, are exactly that-ENDLESS. I could come to work in the morning and see line starting to form, but by the end of the day, the LINE would be twice as long and still-ENDLESS. On your research. I must say, I think Disney World is great as far as entertaining their guests. In our training, we are taught to focus our attention in children rather than the adult. We are told that when speaking to children, we should lower our heads to speak face to face with them and to better interact. We focused mainly in children as our MAIN Guest but ultimately it is all to get their parent’s money.
I would say that Walt Disney was a master of business.
Comment by Larechiga — June 15, 2005 @ 8:04 am