Oriental Land to Invest 140 Bln Yen in Tokyo Disney Theme Parks

"We plan to make Tokyo Disney Resort more attractive,'' said Kazuo Kato, Oriental Land senior managing director. "To increase the capacity of Tokyo Disney theme parks is our most important business strategy.'' Bloomberg News

http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000101&sid=aSFd5hU.rGDw&refer=japan

Am I the only person calculating how many New Tomorrowlands that would buy?

AVP

OLC should save up their yen and buy the theme park business away from WDC. Just license everything and run it in the states. We'd all be better off..

Why doesnt the disney company think this way!?!

DIS does. It just doesn't know how to spend it right. As proof, it hired an outside consultant to tell it how to build a successful Disney theme park. Results were DCA and Paris Studios.

The flaw in that thinking, though, was what was the success criteria. DCA's was to save money in up front construction and design and spend more later on expansion. DisneySea's plan was to build an ultimate guest experience and to ensure the highest quality standards for show, ride performance, and entertainment.

What's the diff? Bean Counters were the focal point in the states and EU, while entertainment and customer satisfaction was the focal point for Tokyo.

And, if you think about it, theme parks should put the latter as priority 1. That will ensure return business and continuous growth over the long term.

The US corporate mentality has been, for the last 8 years or so, short term focus. So anything beyond a three or five year return is not desirable. Some companies it's shorter..

I agree with the short- vs long-term thinking problem. A lot of this stems from it being a publicly-owned corporation whose owners want a return on their investment via increased stock prices. But, in order to ensure that management feels the same way about the stock price increasing, the owners (via the directors) feel compelled to provide incentives via stock options.
This method, unfortunately, has flaws. And when the method is pushed downward into the divisions, sometimes decisions are made that affect long-term success. Sometimes decisions are made favoring one division and hurting another division.

I don't know how OLC is owned. I can only assume, "Not the same way." Certainly, it doesn't also own a near-last-place (depends on who's included)TV network that sucks profit away from the profit-making decisions.

I don't know how OLC is owned. I can only assume, "Not the same way." Certainly, it doesn't also own a near-last-place (depends on who's included)TV network that sucks profit away from the profit-making decisions.

Add to that a network that the owners and directors feel deserves most of the attention. There is such an infatuation with pouring money into ABC. It's one of the biggest blunders (next to AOL and Time Warner) that I have seen.

The thing with OLC is that it's Japanese - so it's got all that culture and business practices from their perspective instead of an American bent (the short term thing and lack of quality)..

I'd hate to perpetuate a stereotype about Japanese efficiency.
Is it a limited liability partnership/corporation, or is it a stock company?

Checking the web site. Hmm, don't understand Japanese. Clicking English version.
Hard to say whether it's owned only by a group of 13 companies or it's owned by shareholders of all sizes.
Alright, there are 100,000 shares of OLC stock. I conclude that it is a closely held company much like DIS (an American company) was closely held when Walt was still alive. No company will try to step up and buy it. Can't find a ticker symbol without being a member of the stock exchange there.

According to the figures and the current exchange rate, OLC is worth about $350 million. That's book value. Its market value is probably much higher.

Here's some old, but probably still relevant info about OLC, from this web site:
http://www.mouseplanet.com/david/m072301.htm
Summary: OLC applies high standards of guest experience, because it is required to.
(Me) Apparently, TDA, in the past, was not required to.

Note1: TDL 2-park annual passport 69000yen, which is $625.34.

Note2: "During periods of high attendance, admission is NOT guaranteed"

Note3: "Dec. 31 Special Day: Tokyo Disneyland Countdown Party 2005" and "Dec. 31 Special Day Tokyo DisneySea New Year's Eve Celebration 2005"
(Special day means hard ticket, I believe.)

Speculative question here: Should whoever is CEO of Oriental Land Company be a prime candidate to be CEO of Disney following Michael Eisner? Probably not likely, or possible. But on paper, in theory... Could this work?

They should at least be in charge of the theme park devision.

I dunno. OLC does a great job of theme parks. But how would they handle a movie studio (animation and live action), television production studios, television broadcast and cable networks, theatrical productions, cruise lines, book publishers, etc., etc., etc.? As to the parks division, I think that it's in pretty good shape right now, if proper support is given by upper echelons. I think that Jay, Matt, and Al have things under control. The jury is still out on Andre over there in Paris, but he's inherited enough problems that he really can't be blamed for the fix the resort is in.

From the MP link in one of these OLC threads, it seems that DIS corporate simply needs to start requiring the in-house theme parks to uphold standards that OLC is required to at Tokyo Disneyland Resort (TDLR).