https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/29/business/disney-theme-park-workers-layoffs.html
The United States has some of the world's best theme parks. Americans and people from around the world swarm to them year round, especially in the summers. However the COVID-19 pandemic prevented many from opening to full capacity or opening at all. Disney theme parks especially took a blow. Much of the state of California is still on a short leash compared to the rest of the United States where most activity has resumed. Although park owners of every type have pushed back on keeping parks closed, Gov. Newsome and the California State Health Department are not budging.
Disneyland and Disney World employed over 110,000 people before the pandemic. Disney World was able to open in Florida, but the popular family vacation park has not experienced the crowd it anticipated. Rather than risk the visit, families are choosing not to attend and wait until all of the restaurants, fire works, live shows, and hugs from favorite characters return.
The closing and soft openings of Disney parks, and many other amusement parks, has left people of all sorts without jobs. Live entertainers, grounds keepers, culinary artists, engineers, and many more lost their jobs. Live entertainers are especially out of luck in a time like this. Amusement parks provide a substantial amount of employment to live entertainers, it is without a doubt that these people will not be returning to work any time soon.
Could this mean a drop in college and university students pursuing degrees in the arts? Will the lack of consumption within amusement parks and similar places show in the GDP? With consumption going down, are people saving more? Will unemployment begin to rise again as companies begin to lose hope?
The amount of people and skill sets it takes to run a place like a Disney theme park is amazing. Their live entertainment is a huge part of the park experience and losing that has and will continue to cause complications for people's livelihood. The decreased consumption of the Disney parks will cause a decrease in GDP, but there will be many other factors as well. The "Happily Ever After" firework show that Disney runs every night at the Magic Kingdom costs about $50,000 a night. The cancellation of this decreases Disney costs but also likely has major repercussions for the companies that rely on these business transactions to run.
ReplyDeleteI know the Disney parks have a huge employment base and the parks usually generate a lot of revenue, but I feel like even when the virus dies down, if it ever will, if people will continue to travel and go to the parks for a while. I feel like a lot of people in California especially are a little more worried than those in Florida, so the hotels and areas around the parks will struggle as well. There are so many factors that go into prepping the park that are now stripped away, and the park can just no longer afford all of their employees for things they don't need right now.
ReplyDeleteI definitely think that a lot of industries like theme pack will suffer a long period of lost customers because people won't feel safe going to these types of places even after the pandemic. I think that covid has definitely changed some, if not all of consumers behavior.
ReplyDeleteIt is definitely interesting to look at how amusement parks are being affected during the pandemic. What makes Disney magical is all of the extra small details they put into the park. Without them it definitely changes the experience. I think when Disney is able to bring back the shows and parades then the crowds will start to form again. The price of the ticket just does not match the normal utility that you would get from it pre Covid. The upside to Disney though is that it can be open all year unlike other parks like Cedar Point.
ReplyDeleteThe closing of amusement parks have significantly impacted the economy and hurt people that are employed in live entertainment, but I think it is interesting to look at just Disney. If you look at just Disney, I wonder how this will affect them as a business. I know that they are a large company and successful, however, when they entered into online streaming, they have had limited success in being profitable. In other words, they have not been profitable with online streaming. Instead, Disney was relying on its other business segments to help keep its online streaming platforms afloat, until it could hold its own. So I wonder how they will be impacted by the reduced profit from their amusement parks. Further, if they are hurt by the closing and soft openings of amusement parks, will they be able to bring back all of their employees when able to operate without restrictions?
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