Disney spent a record $540 million on its Parisian hotels and theme parks in 2023 (Photo by Kristy ... [+]
Disney has revealed that it spent a record $543 million (€504 million) last year on renovating the flagship hotel at its resort in Paris and building a land there based on the hit animated movie Frozen.
It is the largest annual investment ever made in Disneyland Paris since its ornate iron gates swung open in 1992 and is almost double the peak amount spent during the construction of the Walt Disney
The new land will sit on the fringes of a man-made lake which is also under construction along with a new restaurant, a ride themed to beloved 2010 movie Tangled and an Alice in Wonderland stunt show which will debut later this month. The new attractions will be a whole new world for the resort and when the Frozen land opens over the coming years the Studios park will be renamed Disney Adventure World.
It is part of a plan to nearly double the size of the park which opened in 2002 and has long been criticised for being far smaller than its fairytale-themed neighbor, the Disneyland Park.
In November 2017 we broke the news about the expansion which was officially announced in February the following year at a press conference led by Disney's chief executive Bob Iger and French president Emmanuel Macron.
The first step in the expansion plan was the opening in 2022 of the Avengers Campus area based on Disney's Marvel superhero characters. Its roller coaster races past screens showing Iron Man and Captain Marvel whilst another ride uses motion-sensing cameras and 3D screens to give guests the impression that they are spinning webs alongside Spider-Man as we have reported.
A Spider-Man attraction is at the heart of Disney's Avengers Campus in Paris
The lavish land is designed to look like a secret base which has been built on the site of old factories and military compounds. No expense has been spared as fake crumbling brickwork, complete with faded paint on it, can be seen behind the futuristic facades. It feels like less of a theme park area and more of a stage for guests to act our their super hero fantasies.
Costumed characters do battle with each other on the roofs of the elaborate buildings which seems like a more natural location for mock-fights than the stages that usually stand on the ground in theme parks.
Even the restaurants are suited to their surroundings. One is supposedly powered by the serum which enables tiny Avengers team member Ant-Man to shrink and grow so it serves micro Oreos and burgers the size of dinner plates cut into slices like cake.
Another restaurant is hidden inside a converted World War II control center which has blueprints of weapons from the Avengers movies hanging on the walls. Stain marks next to them appear to have been caused by an explosion and there is good reason for this.
The wizards behind this immersive land, and all of the others in Disney's parks, are are known as Imagineers because their jobs involve the imaginative application of engineering. Disneyland Paris was developed by Imagineers who aren't just leaders in theme park design but the entire experiential entertainment sector. They include luminaries like Tom Morris, Eddie Sotto and Jim Shull who oversaw the Avengers Campus.
Shull says the story behind the blast marks is that the dining area was originally a store room for dangerous materials and something went awry there. Pointing to a map of the land, Shull even shows where an airfield would have been located in the imaginary world where the buildings were actually a military base rather than a theme park land.
"The airfield doesn’t exist in reality, but it was present in my mind whenever I thought about the foundations of the designs," he says. It has paid off.
One of Imagineering's most skilled artists, Shull was the logical choice for Avengers Campus as he began drawing Marvel characters when he was only a few years old. "I also owned thousands of Marvel Comics and they proved as useful as the films in the creation and design process," he says. No stone was left unturned as he even visited factories in France to ensure that the ones in Avengers Campus looked authentic.
"European factories don’t look the same as US factories," he says. "The electrical, the fittings, the walls are different." No detail was too trivial as he even inspected valve fittings to design the exposed piping for the make-believe former factory in Avengers Campus. "European guests would have known if the factory didn’t look correct," he explains.
It comes at quite a cost and, according to David Jaraudias, design manager of Avengers Campus, Disney spent a total of $398.6 million (€370 million) on the land. It didn't take long for the investment to start paying off.
Shull's attention to detail has driven a stream of guests through the turnstiles. According to the 2022 Theme Index Report from infrastructure analysts AECOM
Although Disney wholly owns its outpost in Paris, it doesn't itemise the results of any of its parks in its filings in the United States. However, they can be found in the French financial statements of Euro Disney Associés (EDA), the main operating company of Disneyland Paris.
As we revealed last year in The Times of London, the opening of Avengers Campus cast a powerful spell on the resort as EDA's revenue rose nearly three-fold to a record $2.6 billion (€2.4 billion) in the year to September 30, 2022. It outstripped a 57.8% increase in costs leaving the company with a $50.6 million (€47 million) operating profit, its highest in a decade.
Investment in the expansion of the Studios park began showing in EDA's financial statements in 2019 and since then, a total of $2.1 billion (€1.9 billion) has been spent on it and other smaller projects as shown in the graph below.
Investment in Disneyland Paris 2013 to 2023
Last year a further $25.4 million (€23.6 million) was invested by the Disney-owned company which operates the Disney Village shopping and dining district at Disneyland Paris along with five of its on-site hotels. The grandest of the group, Disney Hotel New York – The Art of Marvel, re-opened in 2021 following an extensive renovation which gave it the appearance of a high-end art gallery dedicated to superhero comics. It has had a magic touch.
According to documents filed by Disney last year, in 2022 the hotel's average daily rate was more than 100% higher than in 2018, its last full year of operation before closing for the renovation. The filings add that spending per room increased by more than 50% and guest scores more than doubled. It hasn't been such a fairytale for the flagship hotel at Disneyland Paris.
EDA's financial statements for the year-ending September 30, 2023 reveal that the increase in spending on construction in progress "mainly reflects the investment linked to the development plan for the Walt Disney Studios park and the renovation work of the Disneyland Hotel."
The palatial pink hotel at the entrance to the Disneyland Park re-opened in January after an extensive renovation and it is now themed to Disney princesses. It was initially deluged with negative reviews reportedly giving it a rating of 2.5 out of 5 on Tripadvisor.
It has risen to 4 since then but negative reviews are still flooding in and in April alone one guest said that "the deluxe rooms are ok but not particularly magical." Another added that "literally whatever we tried and ate was probably the worst food my family ever had. (without exaggerating)." A third guest concluded that "overall, this stay was not up to expectations and we will stay elsewhere in the future."
Disneyland Paris replied to say the concerns have been logged and that it "will address them internally to prevent similar issues from occurring in the future." It isn't stopping there.
After years of under-investment, there are still many areas of the resort that are in need of a fresh sprinkling of pixie dust. In 2018 we revealed that the Disney Village would be transformed by both a major renovation and an expansion.
"We have renewed part of the hotels, and we will continue that. We have renewed a number of attractions in the parks so the next step will be to renew the Disney Village as well," revealed Francis Borezée, the former vice president of resort and real estate development at Disneyland Paris. "We will start with the renovation, but then we have an opportunity to expand where today we have tents which are used for business events."
Disney Village hasn’t changed much since it opened with Disneyland Paris 32 years ago. It was designed by renowned architect Frank Gehry and has an industrial style which was popular in the 1990s. There are brushed steel pillars, bare concrete paths and shops in warehouse-like units. A phased plan to give it the appearance of a rustic retail park was finally officially announced in March 2022 and is currently underway. There is more to come.
Disney Village is getting an upgrade
Another land is due to be added to the Studios park once it has been rebranded. It was originally announced that the land would be set in the world of Star Wars but since then rumours have swirled that it could be switched for one based on the Lion King or Avatar following the success of the latter at Walt Disney World in Florida.
Disney needs to work its magic next door to the Studios park too. To this day, the last major new-build attraction in the Disneyland Park was the Space Mountain roller coaster which opened way back in 1995. The resort faces home grown challenges too as the DLP Report fan account frequently posts photos of disrepair there. Even the new Avengers Campus hasn't escaped its gaze.
Its photos show that the glass doors at the entrance to one of its restaurants shattered in September, effects in the parade next door went down in February and earlier this month paving cracked near to the route.
There is no shortage of money to patch this up. As we recently revealed in The Guardian, Disneyland Paris made a record operating profit of $188.5 million (€175 million) last year as revenue rose 23.5% to an all-time high of $3.1 billion (€2.9 billion).
This represented a staggering 56.4% of the international revenue generated by Disney's entire parks and experiences division and 17.1% of its profit. In contrast, Disney's direct to consumer streaming unit burned up $2.6 billion of losses during 2023 so the profits from Disneyland Paris helped to mitigate that. The entire parks and experiences division had a similar effect on Disney's overall fortunes as it generated 69.6% of the media giant's $12.9 billion operating income on just 36.6% of the revenue.
Disney is capitalizing on this by heavily investing in its parks and resorts. It has been widely reported that Disney will pour in $60 billion over the next decade though its filings reveal that the sum will actually be half that with the difference spent on tech, maintenance and its cruise line. It is still 60 times the amount invested in Disneyland Paris last year and given how much of a glow that has given to the French resort's bottom line, Disney's parks and experiences division has everything to play for.
