Walt Disney World made its tiered park access permanent, reserving the best perks for guests paying Deluxe rates. If you think this is just a theme park story, you're not paying attention to where the entire lodging industry is headed.
Disney is gutting and renaming Pop Century Resort as part of a $60 billion parks investment blitz. If you're an independent or branded select-service within 30 miles of Orlando, the competitive pressure just changed shape... and not in the direction you were hoping.
Disney's Pop Century Resort is pulling in 87% occupancy and record per-capita spending while guests publicly rate it 3 out of 10. That gap between the revenue line and the experience line is a story every hotel operator has lived... and most have lived to regret.
A near-drowning at the Signia by Hilton Orlando... a "Good Neighbor" Disney property... is the latest in a string of water incidents near the resort. If you run a hotel with a pool and no lifeguard, your risk exposure just got a lot more visible.
When the most profitable division in entertainment promotes its boss to run the whole company, it tells you something about where the money is. And when they backfill him with a guy who ran luxury hotels and cruise ships, it tells you even more.
