Disney bets big on visitor-tracking technology
Disney bets big on visitor-tracking technology
MyMagic+, a $1 billion experiment in crowd control, data
collection and wearable technology, could change the way people play -- and
spend -- at the Magic Kingdom. But not everyone is singing its praises.
By MSN Money Partner 7 hours ago
By Christopher Palmeri, Bloomberg BusinessWeek
Jason McInerney and his wife, Melissa, recently tapped
their lunch orders onto a touchscreen at the entrance to the Be Our Guest
restaurant at Florida's Walt Disney World Resort and were told to take any open
seat. Moments later a food server appeared at their table with their croque-monsieur
and carved turkey sandwiches.
Asks McInerney, a once-a-year visitor to Disney theme
parks: "How did they know where we were sitting?"
The answer was on the electronic bands the couple wore on
their wrists. That's the magic of the MyMagic+, Walt Disney's $1 billion
experiment in crowd control, data collection, and wearable technology that
could change the way people play -- and spend -- at the "Most Magical
Place on Earth."
If the system works, it could be copied not only by other
theme parks but also by museums, zoos, airports and malls. "It's a
complete game changer," says Douglas Quinby, vice president for research
at PhoCusWright, a travel consulting firm.
That would suit Disney just fine, as it expands its
global empire of theme parks and kicks up efforts to fend off rivals. The most
formidable is Comcast's Universal Studios, which this summer will unveil a
massive expansion of its hit Wizarding World of Harry Potter attraction at its
parks near Walt Disney World.
One hitch for Disney could be if devotees such as the
McInerneys find MyMagic+ confining, confusing or even a bit creepy. Some have
lit into it with such vigor on Facebook and blogs such as micechat.com that
Kevin Yee, a former Disney World employee who operates the travel website
UltimateOrlando.com, called their grievances "a rolling boulder . . . and
it's going to be difficult to stop completely."
Change is always tricky for Disney, especially at its
parks, where introducing a new brand of coffee can spark a revolt by fans.
Unhappy mouseketeers last year began a petition drive to keep Disneyland in
January from pulling the Billy Hill and the Hillbillies show after 21 years (it
didn't work). Others marched on the park's City Hall in 2004 after
recalibrations made to the Mad Tea Party ride in the name of safety slowed it
down.
MyMagic+ promises far more radical change. It's a
sweeping reservation and ride planning system that allows for bookings months
in advance on a website or smartphone app. Bracelets called MagicBands, which
link electronically to an encrypted database of visitor information, serve as
admission tickets, hotel keys, and credit or debit cards; a tap against a
sensor pays for food or trinkets. The bands have radio frequency identification
(RFID) chips -- which critics derisively call spychips because of their ability
to monitor people and things.
That tracking power also is what makes them so important
for Disney's $14.1 billion theme park and resort business. Intelligence
collected using the bands coupled with what visitors input into the related My
Disney Experience app and website -- all voluntary -- help Disney determine
when to add more staff at rides, what restaurants should serve, which souvenirs
should be stocked, and how many employees in costume should roam around at any
given time. Data about customer preferences could be used to craft e-mails or
text messages alerting them to restaurant menu changes or sudden openings for
reservations in an expedited queue at Space Mountain or the Twilight Zone Tower
of Terror.
The goal is to offer people what Tom Staggs, head of the
company's parks and resorts unit, calls "a more immersive, more seamless,
and more personal experience" -- allowing Disney employees to address a
child by name, for example, or wish someone a happy birthday. "The
implications for big data and for personalization are extraordinary," says
Quinby. "It could radically change interaction between customers and the
company."
Moreover, visitors with full Disney World schedules
mapped out in advance on the MyMagic+ system will be less likely to jump
spontaneously to one of the dozens of other attractions in Central Florida,
including five SeaWorld Entertainment parks and a Legoland. And, of course, the
MagicBands make it so easy to spend.
"When you make (the logistics) easier, people tend
to spend more time on entertainment and more time on consumables -- be that
food and beverage, merchandise, etc.," Disney Chief Financial Officer Jay
Rasulo said in a November investor call. "We do expect this to be a . . .
growingly positive impact on our business in the years to come."
Chief Executive Officer Robert Iger told analysts in
February that the new system helped the Magic Kingdom park accommodate 3,000
additional daily guests during the Christmas holiday season by reducing
congestion around the most popular attractions. "I'd say the biggest
impact is, one, being able to accommodate more people because it's just more
efficient," Iger said, "and second, enabling guests to have a
substantially better experience than they've had before because they're doing
more."
Many Disney fans are already sold. "I think this in the
end is going to make Disney better," says Jamie Landry, a Boston police
officer who visits Disney World with his wife and daughter every year. He was
floating in the pool at Disney's on-site Coronado Springs Resort hotel,
appreciating his waterproof MagicBand, which allows him never to carry
identification or room keys or credit cards.
That's not how many critics have reacted in the
blogosphere. The harshest complaints are directed at FastPass+, a way of
reducing wait times for popular rides.
Under the original FastPass -- introduced in 1999 and
still used at Disney's other parks -- a visitor could race around to collect
more than six paper reservation slips a day at kiosks outside the most popular
attractions, show up at a time printed on the slip, and get into a
theoretically shorter queue. The new system, while letting guests at Disney
hotels book reservations months in advance via the My Disney Experience app and
website, limits all visitors' reserve-ahead slots to three per day. That
unleashed a torrent of objections that Disney is limiting the number of
reservations guests can make for its most popular attractions, and that the
lines are as long as ever.
A Disney spokeswoman says neither lines for its reserved
spots nor walk-up lines are longer. The number of attractions on which slots
can be reserved has doubled to 60 and limits on advance reservations for the
most popular rides should allow all guests to book at least one of their top
choices, Disney says. A Disney World spokeswoman says 80 percent of the
comments on social media about MyMagic+ have been positive, and just 2 percent
have been negative.
Still, Tom Burnet, CEO of Accesso Technology Group, which
makes queue management systems for theme parks, says his company's experience
with ride scheduling at parks in Europe is that people don't like to schedule
their days in advance. "One of the joys of being in a theme park is you're
not on a schedule," he says.
That's been part of Disney World's appeal for Clayton
Cannon, who lives about an hour's drive away in Daytona Beach and holds an
annual pass. His gripe is that MyMagic+ puts day-trippers like him and others
who don't plan ahead at a disadvantage. "Magic Kingdom was definitely a
worse experience," he says about a recent visit. "You used to be able
to get there at 3 or 5 p.m. and still get a FastPass. Now all the FastPasses
for top rides are being wiped out by 10 in the morning."
Despite such grousing, hospitality experts say that the
use of more monitoring technology is only a matter of time. Explains Accesso's
Burnet: "Where Disney goes, other people follow."
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