Disney Parks is lowering some prices and increasing benefits for guests in a bid to win back customers who felt nickel-and-dimed in recent years. Among other changes, the company is increasing the number of cheaper tickets available to guests, relaxing reservation requirements, and reintroducing complimentary overnight self-parking.
The policy changes come after a whirlwind couple of years for the House of Mouse. After shutting down completely early in the pandemic, former CEO Bob Chapek led an initiative to focus on getting visitors to spend more money rather than driving more traffic to the park. Chapek called the strategy "yield management."
This approach worked — for a while. Disney had some record quarters, with the experiences and parks division making $7.9 billion in profits in 2022, which was up from $6.8 billion in profits in 2019, but Disney's famously loyal park visitors could only take so much change. Multipleoutlets reported that the combination of higher costs and more restrictive policies was causing a backlash from customers.
The parks also implemented a number of changes related to the pandemic, such as requiring contactless payment, which also weren't received well by customers.
Now Disney is trying to win them back.
"As we step into this bright future it is important that we continuously evolve to help deliver the best guest experience possible," wrote Josh D’Amaro, parks and resorts chairperson, in a letter. "Many of you know that I’m in the parks fairly often … and I listen to you and to our guests about the things that are working … as well as the things that might need some change."
Disney is making these changes less than two months after CEO Bob Iger took the head role once again from Chapek for a two-year stint aimed at getting the company on firmer ground.
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400 million purchase. A State Department spokesperson said the electric car company owned by Musk was the only one that expressed interest back in May 2024. The deal with Tesla was only in its planning phases but it was forecast to be the largest contract of the year. It shows how some of his wealth has come and was still expected to come from taxpayers.
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
You'll just have to wait for interest rates (and prices) to go down. Plus, this deal's a steel, the big carmaker wedding is off, and bribery is back, baby!
It’s a chicken-and-egg problem: Restaurants are struggling with record-high U.S. egg prices, but their omelets, scrambles and huevos rancheros may be part of the problem. Breakfast is booming at U.S. eateries. First Watch, a restaurant chain that serves breakfast, brunch and lunch, nearly quadrupled its locations over the past decade to 570. Fast-food chains like Starbucks and Wendy's added more egg-filled breakfast items. In normal times, egg producers could meet the demand. But a bird flu outbreak that has forced them to slaughter their flocks is making supplies scarcer and pushing up prices. Some restaurants like Waffle House have added a surcharge to offset their costs.
William Falcon, CEO and Founder of Lightning AI, discusses the ongoing feud between Elon Musk and Sam Altman, and how everyday people can use AI in their lives.
U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum “will not go unanswered,” European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen vowed on Tuesday, adding that they will trigger toug
The Trump administration has ordered the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to stop nearly all its work, effectively shutting down the agency that was created to protect consumers after the 2008 financial crisis and subprime mortgage-lending scandal. Russell Vought is the newly installed director of the Office of Management and Budget. Vought directed the CFPB in a Saturday night email to stop work on proposed rules, to suspend the effective dates on any rules that were finalized but not yet effective, and to stop investigative work and not begin any new investigations. The agency has been a target of conservatives since President Barack Obama created it following the 2007-2008 financial crisis.
