Flickr user Coconut Wireless is recently uploaded a huge collection of photos taken in and around Disney’s Hawaiian resort Aulani, located in Ko Olina near Honolulu, Oahu. He’s also published them under creative commons which means I get to share some of them here. However,… Read More »Aulani Photo Update
Jason Garcia at the Orlando Sentinel has done some excellent digging on the cause and effect of the recent firings, yes there was more than one, at Disney Vacation Club. As we speculated earlier, it turns out that former DVC President Jim Lewis was let… Read More »More details on Disney Vacation Club Firings
The Orlando Sentinel is reporting that former Disney Vacation Club President Jim Lewis was let go by the Walt Disney Company on Friday. Lewis had led Disney’s time-share arm since 2006. While Lewis presided over a controversial expansion of DVC locations across WDW and a… Read More »Disney Vacation Club Shakeup
Every Fall, the Disney Parks transform to cater a recurring celebration called Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party, a nighttime event for little “boys and ghouls” to dress up and experience their favorite Park like they have never seen it before. The Parks seem to endure a… Read More »Mickey’s Halloween Party and My Fear of Buyer’s Remorse
This summer, Disney introduces Aulani – a new Hawaiian Resort and spa unlike any other. The commercial “Aulani Magic” takes you on a tour of the magical, family-centric vacation destination. It is truly a family paradise… in paradise. “Just a touch of magic?” I don’t… Read More »Commercial for Aulani
In a long internal memo today, Tom Staggs made official the organizational shakeup everyone knew was coming after Staggs took over the Walt Disney Parks and Resorts division. It’s nothing earth shattering, but it does flatten some of the levels of hierarchy that were said to have frustrated Staggs since he took over.
In short, current WDW president Meg Crofton expands to oversee all the domestic parks and the two parks in France. Karl Holtz, who a few years ago was rumored to be leaving Disney, is instead adding DVC to his DCL and Adventures by Disney responsibilities. Leslie Ferraro becomes executive vice president, Global Marketing and Sales combining those two closely related departments and Erin Wallace, executive vice president, Operations Integration also adds revenue management to her desk. The move also creates a new executive council under Staggs.
While Staggs’ reorganization did not cut any of the deadwood certain segments of Disney fans wanted to see go, I believe the general movement here is a good one. It will allow for efficiencies where they need to exist and independence, with oversight, as required for the parks. Combining marketing and sales is a no-duh in my book, they are both measured by the same final metrics (butts in beds and asses through the gates), so unifying them is good. The only move that looks questionable to me is giving the extra power of revenue management to operations. However, they are the yin and the yang of theme park operations. Having one person keep a close eye via her myriad of spreadsheets and minions (and I mean that in the nicest possible way), could be very positive.
Let’s keep a watch on this for the next 3-year planning cycle and see if there really is any improvement. Meanwhile, the pressure is kicked up a notch for these people to get things done or they too could be reorganized right out of a job.
The full text of Tom Staggs’ announcement is below the jump:
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Disney has just released this bird’s eye view of their Hawaii resort and DVC complex Aulani. Looks beautiful, even with some work remaining. It’s a bit hard to get the scale of the towers, but you can expect that beach to be a lot more… Read More »Aulani Resort – A Bird’s Eye View
Since 1991 the Disney Vacation Club has enticed Disney fans to buy into the magic as part owner of a timeshare property located right on Walt Disney World. Since then they’ve expanded to other locations in Florida, Disneyland, and soon Hawaii. Add to that the… Read More »Disney Vacation Club Remakes Logo to Reflect Changed Brand