Disney Looks to Boost Adventure

Gone are the quirky street performers and sheet-covered mimes who used to surround visitors as they strolled through Disney’s California Adventure. A fast-paced, pelvis-thrusting dance show has been axed. So has the much-hyped nightly parade that had leotard-clad women shimmying up poles.

In their place are a gang of Disney characters performing for visitors, a tamed-down dance show based on a Broadway musical and the return of Disney’s wildly popular--and notably wholesome--Main Street Electrical Parade.

The changes weren’t exactly what Walt Disney Co. executives expected. But as Paul Pressler, chairman of Disney’s Parks and Resorts Division, acknowledged in a recent interview, it has been a year of lessons for California Adventure.

The 55-acre park opened in February 2001 as part of Disney’s $1.4-billion expansion of the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim. But beset by the recession, the tourism slump after Sept. 11 and some problems of its own making, California Adventure never came close to meeting attendance projections, even after Disney offered unprecedented discounts and made a series of changes to take some of the edge out of what was billed as an edgier, hipper alternative to Disneyland.

“I’ve watched [California Adventure] this past year like a proud father who certainly has greater expectations and aspirations for his son,” Pressler said. And he isn’t giving up on it.

Pressler and other Disney executives are counting on boosting crowds this year by adding more attractions for small children, among other changes. And they are looking for a little help from the economy and an improved tourism climate.

“You build in a boom and you open in a bust. We’ve done better than we thought without any Japanese tourists,” Disney Chief Executive Michael Eisner said in an interview last week, referring to California Adventure’s debut year. Eisner said Disney’s amusement parks are showing signs of recovery.

But challenges abound. With air traffic still down, theme parks overall are expected to show little, if any, growth this year. Analysts say resorts that rely on out-of-state visitors, such as those in Orlando, Fla., probably will struggle the most, while parks that cater to locals, such as Six Flags Inc.’s Magic Mountain in Valencia, will continue to benefit from Americans looking for entertainment closer to home. California Adventure figures to fall somewhere in between.

New parks tend to see an attendance dip in the second year--what industry analysts call a “sophomore slump” that usually follows the hype and curiosity of a theme park’s opening year. Disney’s original projections for California Adventure were for 7 million visitors a year. But the trade publication Amusement Business put the figure at 5 million for 2001, compared with more than 12 million visitors at Disneyland.

Pressler dismissed suggestions that California Adventure’s sophomore year will be slower, saying that when a park opens in a year like 2001, “all the rules go out the window.”

“Our parks traditionally see growth year over year,” he said.

California Adventure already has added a new attraction based on the television show “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,” and industry watchers say that by this fall, the It’s a Bug’s Life attraction probably will be turned into an area of rides and shows for young children.

“We basically come over here for the food, because the food’s way better,” said longtime Disneyland pass holder Cheryl Rivera, who braved the cold weather on a recent weekday with her husband and 4-year-old daughter for lunch at California Adventure’s Fisherman’s Wharf section.

“But there’s not much else here that holds my daughter’s attention,” she said. “This is a park I want to come to when there’s a baby-sitter at home.”

Disney has responded to such reviews by fine-tuning the park. By last summer, the popular Main Street Electrical Parade was pulled from retirement and delivered to California Adventure. In the fall, when Wolfgang Puck Food Co.’s upscale seafood eatery Avalon Cove pulled out of the park, Disney turned the space into a casual restaurant where visitors can interact with Mickey and other characters.

“We thought we’d limit Disney characters to the more traditional Disneyland experience,” Pressler said. “But lo and behold, our guests said they wanted the characters everywhere. These are things we didn’t anticipate, but we read them loud and clear.”

Another common gripe is that with about two dozen attractions, including exhibits, California Adventure remains short on thrills. But there is word that a Tower of Terror attraction--copied from the popular thrill ride at Walt Disney World--will arrive at California Adventure in two years. Disney representatives would not comment, but they are expected this week to announce new attractions.

Disney executives point out that California Adventure is an anchor for the overall Disneyland Resort, which includes a luxury hotel and a retail entertainment center--and that it takes time to influence consumer behavior. Disneyland Resort President Cynthia Harriss said guest surveys routinely have given the new park more than a 90% approval rating.

Hoteliers and other businesses in Anaheim whose fates are tied to the Disneyland Resort are counting on an increase in domestic tourists, although future bookings from foreign visitors remain down. Anaheim’s convention center says it is expecting 1 million to 1.1 million visitors this year, up from 960,000 in 2001.

But as California Adventure heads into its second year, the issue may have less to do with recession woes and more with the public’s perception of the new park.

“This has put them way behind, because California Adventure is still not on people’s must-see list,” said Jim Cammisa Jr., an analyst at Travel Industry Indicators in Miami.

Tim O’Brien, a senior editor for Amusement Business, said he believes Disney can overcome the sophomore slump.

“They may have fallen short attendance-wise their first year, but they’re not going to let this thing fail,” he said. “It needs the buzz, it needs more family offerings, but it will click on. There’s still time.”

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Times staff writers Marc Ballon and Richard Verrier contributed to this report.

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Fewer Visitors

A limping economy and the tourism slump since Sept. 11 resulted in across-the-board attendance drop-offs for theme parks in 2001. Estimated attendance at top U.S. theme parks:

2001 %chg

(in millions) from 2000

1. Magic Kingdom (Fla.) 14.78 -4%

2. Disneyland 12.35 -11

3. Epcot (Fla.) 9.01 -15

4. Disney-MGM Studios (Fla.) 8.37 -6

5. Disney’s Animal Kingdom (Fla.) 7.77 -6

6. Universal Studios (Fla.) 7.29 -10

7. Islands of Adventure at Universal (Fla.) 5.52 -8

8. SeaWorld Florida 5.10 -2

9. California Adventure* 5.00 0

10. Universal Studios (Calif.) 4.73 -9

*opened Feb. 8, 2001

Source: Amusement Business