With Disney’s parks and cruises shut down for extended periods, the company is thinking ahead to what will change when they re-open—and the most likely answer is wellness checks added to the existing checks of bags and backpacks.
Disney chairman Bob Iger told Barron’s that the big issue for a comeback is that people will need to feel safe. “Some of that could come in the form ultimately of a vaccine, but in the absence of that, it could come from basically more scrutiny, more restrictions,” he said. “Just as we now do bag checks for everybody that goes into our parks, it could be that at some point, we add a component of that that takes people’s temperatures, as a for-instance.”
He also said the company is watching closely the steps that China is taking as they begin their path back to normalcy.
“We know when it ends that we will have things for the public to enjoy and to escape to, maybe in ways they will appreciate more than they ever have,” he said. In the meantime, although the company originally refused to, it has stopped billing its annual passholders the monthly payments for their memberships.
Image: Disney World Orlando before and after park’s closing.
I’ve heard Disney is losing $30,000,000 a day right now during the shutdown. No company, not even Disney, can survive that for very long.
Companies need to develop plans to open safely, if in a limited way, until there is a vaccine.