30 Aug 2019
'10-hour queues a sign of failure' says Disney's Bob Chapek
BY Tom Anstey
Disney’s parks and resorts chair Bob Chapek has spoken out about smaller crowds at the operator's parks, saying that a 10-hour queue line should be seen "as a sign of failure".
Despite its domestic parks achieving record revenue over the last three months, Disney's visitor figures fell well short of expectations in the company's most recent earnings report. With the launch of Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge at Disneyland in California, significant attendance increases were expected. The opposite actually happened, with attendance dropping by 3 per cent. Disney chair Bob Iger blamed the decline on visitors staying away because of expected overcrowding, hotel price increases and a significant increase in entry fees for the park.
Responding to the low turnout following the launch of Galaxy's Edge, Chapek told CNBC that a lack of extremely long lines despite the hugely hyped launch was a good thing for both Disney and its customers.
"The deep secret is that we don’t intend to have lines," he said. “If you build in enough capacity, the rides don’t go down and it operates at 99 per cent efficiency. You shouldn’t have 10-hour lines."
Chapek's response was also aimed Hagrid's Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure – a new rollercoaster for Universal's Island of Adventure in Orlando. According to visitor reports, following launch, queues for the ride were more than 10 hours long.
"One of the wins that we had with the opening of the original Galaxy’s Edge is that we didn’t have the waits," said Chapek.
"So 10-hour lines are not a sign of success. It should be seen as a sign of, frankly, failure."
Fans queued overnight in Orlando on 29 August for the launch of the Florida version of Galaxy's Edge, with the park opening at 4:30 am and queues at their peak for the new Millennium Falcon ride reaching up to six hours. Since launch, waiting times have fallen to an estimated three hours.
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