Some snippets from the transcript of yesterday’s earnings call:
On Genie
Bob:
"Additionally, we’ve made significant investments in sophisticated technology and tools creating a revolutionary new multitiered service we’re calling Disney Genie that will enable our guests to more easily and efficiently navigate everything our parks have to offer. We’re very, very excited about this new service and we’ll be providing additional details soon.
The goal of Disney Genie, which will appear in a user-friendly app, is to create a better, more personalized and customized experience for guests, putting them in control and providing even greater flexibility and choice. They’ll be able to spend less time waiting in line and figuring out what attractions or dining options are available and more time having fun."
“Putting them in control” ahhhh. that’s a good one Bob!
Attendance levels
From Christine:
At Walt Disney World, third-quarter attendance levels were generally at or near our daily capacity levels, which increased throughout the quarter.
And for anyone wondering about the reservation system being here to stay, and how it will impact the parks ability to manage crowds, an answer to a question:
And that’s only going to grow in the future with our ability to really do world-class yield management systems through our new reservation system. - Bob
So in addition to all the technology things that we’re implementing, as Bob mentioned, reservation systems, the dining apps, we’re just seeing the consumer behavior be very favorable. -Christine
I wonder what she means by “the dining app”?
Question on technology from the audience:
And then if I can ask Bob a parks question just on technology. You mentioned the Disney Genie. How substantial of a sort of an improvement or evolution in the guest experience are you expecting to bring to market? And MyMagic+ is pretty – it’s been around for a while.
And I’m just wondering if you think there’s a real transformation ahead for the business as you take advantage of the last year plus of downtime to reinvent the experience? Just maybe add some context, would be helpful.
Bob’s Answer:
OK. Ben, you used the correct word, transformational. MyMagic+ was us basically sticking our toe in the pond of this type of transformational work. Disney Genie, though, is that program on steroids.
This is going to revolutionize our guest experience. Guests are going to spend less time waiting and more time having fun in our parks with a dramatically improved guest experience. That’s going to make their navigation of their day and their planning of their day much easier. Essentially, what it’s going to do is take the consumer preferences that we know from our consumers, given what we know from them and blend that with basically industrial engineering data that we’ve got in terms of how our park is operating that day and meld those together to make suggestions on the fly that not only will lead to that improved guest experience, but at the same time lead to substantial commercial opportunities for us as the guest navigates their days.
So it certainly qualifies in my mind for both materiality and transformational impact on our business from a yield standpoint.
A question about operating capacity:
Answer from Bob:
We’ve got 70% of our available rooms open in Walt Disney World.
Answer from Christine:
Yeah, I would just add that our parks – our plan – and once again, this is – we’ll monitor the trends with what’s going on with the Delta variant. But we’re expecting to have our parks domestically be fully staffed up by the end of this calendar year, calendar 2021. And we’re going to be increasing capacities as we have the demand and we’re also being able to train – thoroughly train our employees as they come back in. And once again, this is an ever-changing landscape with COVID, but we’re going to be particularly careful and we’re also going to bring our capacity online aggressively, but measured.
We’re not just going to open up the doors and flung them open. So we’re doing this in a measured fashion for the health and safety of not only our guests, but also our cast members in the parks.