Disneyland in LA was forced to shut down two
cooling towers after an outbreak of legionnaires disease (a disease caused by
Legionella bacteria and can be found in water systems) Health officials stated
that 9 people developed the disease when they visited the park back in September.
According to Dr. Pamela Hymel, chief medical officer for Walt
Disney Parks and Resorts, “the towers were shut down after Disney was contacted
by the county health care agency on October 27 about increased Legionnaires'
cases in Anaheim.We conducted a review and
learned that two cooling towers had elevated levels of Legionella
bacteria," Hymel said. As of right now, the towers will remain shut down
until they are verified to be free from contamination which could take up to
two weeks.
I think this could possibly hurt Disney in a few ways. First, there could be a decrease in the number of visitors just because of the fear of going and getting sick. I think this is a common theme with things like illnesses and shootings, although some cases more severe than others. In addition, this could potentially cause Disneyland to spend more money each year to get the water consistently checked for this type of disease, as well as any others that could possibly occur. I think having the water checked more than once a year could decrease the fear some visitors could have, but will also cost more money to do so. I am interested to see if Disneyland will suffer a loss of visitors and/or put in new regulations to check the water on a regular basis.
ReplyDeleteHopefully Disney figures this out. this will hurt tourism and definitely decrease visitors to the park in the near future
ReplyDeleteWe have seen recent events such as this one with Chipotle, and Disney should brace themselves for similar outcomes. Chipotle's stock fell almost 34% after the first e-coli outbreak in their restaurants and I could see a similar effect happening to Disney. Hopefully their executives handle this situation seriously in order to minimize the negative effects to such a big company.
ReplyDeleteDisney is such a large company that I feel like this won't have a very drastic effect on their company as a whole. The LA location may take a hit, but they also have locations elsewhere around the country that will help balance this out.
ReplyDeleteI'm surprised Disney didn't see an immediate drop in ticket sales for Disneyland especially since Disney's market is children. Anything threatening towards a child's health immediately gets a response. Hopefully for Disney, it only effects ticket sales and stocks for Disneyland and not all of the parks. Because if the public abandons all the parks then Disney would take a major hit.
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