In good years, the Disneyland Resort is the best friend an Anaheim hotel could have, filling rooms with visitors who couldn’t find space at Disney’s own area hotels.
But in slow times, it can be like competing with an 800-pound, er, mouse.
“Disneyland is and isn’t helping our business,” said Ken Buksa, general manager of the Sheraton Anaheim Hotel across from the theme parks.
Disney is aiding neighboring hotels with marketing packages and discounts designed to drive people to its parks and area hotels, Buksa and others said.
“They are definitely reaching out to other hotels in the area to assist with marketing, because it means hotel stays and tickets sales for them as well,” said Brad Logsdon, director of sales and marketing at the 1,500-room Hilton Anaheim, the largest hotel in the county.
But, like other hoteliers, Disney is struggling to fill its own rooms, “offering discount rates they really didn’t do in the past,” Buksa said.
The slower economy and Disney’s own efforts to fill its hotels have cut into what Anaheim hoteliers refer to as the overflow business.
“In the old days we had a lot of overflow spilling out into our hotels because the Disney hotels were usually the first to fill,” Logsdon said. “Now, Disney is working as hard as they can to barely fill their hotels and the rest of us are doing the same, trying not to rely on the overflow factor anymore.”
While Anaheim’s meetings and conventions business has grown into a force of its own, the give and take for hotel visitors shows how Disney remains the city’s driving force, in good times and bad.
In good years, Disney’s two theme parks, three hotels and retailers at its Downtown Disney District shopping center generate more than $1 billion in annual revenue.
For the 12 months through June, city officials expect the Disney operations to generate $937 million in revenue.
The Disneyland Resort draws about 15 million visitors a year, putting it at No. 6 last year among the nation’s top tourist spots after Times Square, Las Vegas, Washington, D.C., Boston and Disney’s Florida parks, according to Forbes magazine.
Much of what has been developed around the Anaheim theme parks,the convention center, hotels, Angel Stadium of Anaheim, Honda Center,owes its existence to Disney’s drawing power.
Now Disney is looking to makeover plans for its Disney’s California Adventure California theme park to drive future visitors to Anaheim.
Last year, Disney announced plans for a $1.1 billion upgrade to the theme park, which has struggled to meet expectations in the shadow of ever popular Disneyland Park.
Since opening eight years ago, California Adventure has drawn about 5 million visitors a year, versus the 7 million Disney originally hoped for.
Disney is in the process of replacing the park’s California vacation theme with a piece of Walt Disney’s early days in Hollywood and rides based on films from the company’s Pixar Animation Studios Inc. and older Disney characters.
“Disney is doing its part to ensure that we’re relevant in the years to come,” said Robert Donahue, director of conventions and resorts at the Disneyland Resort.
Last month, Disney unveiled the latest redevelopment of the park due to premiere early next year, World of Color, a nighttime water show named after Walt Disney’s first TV series.
A lake in the middle of the park’s Paradise Pier was emptied to make way for an acre of equipment. Some 1,200 programmable fountains are being installed for the show’s spring premiere.
World of Color is set to feature what Disney bills as the world’s largest water screen,50-feet high by 380-feet wide. Scenes from animated Disney movies are set to be projected onto the screen.
Coming Year
In the next year, plans call for redoing the entrance to California Adventure to echo Disneyland’s Main Street. The park’s Buena Vista Street is set to be changed from its current CityWalk motif to a 1920s Los Angeles theme with storefronts.
A Red Car trolley is planned to run from the entrance to the Hollywood Pictures Backlot near the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror ride.
Toy Story Midway Mania, an interactive ride based on the Pixar “Toy Story” movies, opened at the park a year ago.
When California Adventure opened, few rides and sections were tied to Disney characters. Now rides are getting the Disney treatment in a bid to connect with longtime fans.
The Mulholland Madness rollercoaster is being recast as Goofy’s Sky School. The Golden Dreams Theater, once home to a movie about the history of California, is being razed this summer to make way for a Little Mermaid ride due to open in 2011.
The park is being expanded to include Cars Land, a section with three rides based on the Pixar animated movie “Cars.”
Disney’s hotels also are getting made over or expanded. The company is adding hotel rooms and timeshares to its Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel & Spa as part of an expansion set to wrap up later this year.
The 2.5-acre hotel expansion is adding more than 200 rooms and 50 two-bedroom villas for members of Disney Vacation Club. Other additions include a rooftop deck for watching fireworks, an additional pool and a 300-space underground parking garage.
Disneyland Hotel also is set to undergo a renovation of its 969 rooms starting in early 2010 with completion by 2012.
