Mickey Mouse (left) and Disney CEO Bob Iger Credit: Photo via Wikimedia

With a slew of new rides and attractions coming to its parks and more new cruise ships on the way, Disney is still thinking about how much more it can spend to expand its Parks, Experiences and Products segment. 

Last week, the entertainment company announced that over the next 10 years, it aims to invest roughly $60 billion in its parks and cruise line. That’s nearly double what it’s invested over the past decade.

The staggering investment plan came during an investor summit with senior Disney executives and groups of Wall Street analysts and investors at Walt Disney World. 

“We’re incredibly mindful of the financial underpinning of the company, the need to continue to grow in terms of bottom line, the need to invest wisely so that we’re increasing the returns on invested capital, and the need to maintain a balance sheet, for a variety of reasons,” CEO Bob Iger said.

In a company post, Disney broke down the investment strategy into categories of stories, scale and fans.

Internal research estimates there are more than 700 million people who are fans of Disney, but haven’t visited the parks.

Over the last 10 years, Disney has brought blockbuster IPs like Marvel, Star Wars, Toy Story and Avatar to its parks through immersive lands and attractions. Now, there are dozens of different projects in the works across its domestic and international parks, including opening Frozen lands in Hong Kong, Paris and Tokyo and a Zootopia land in Shanghai.

At Destination D23 in Orlando, the company also detailed several new attractions and updates coming soon to Disney World. During a shareholder meeting in April, Iger announced plans to invest $17 billion in Disney World over the next decade, which he said would create nearly 13,000 new jobs with the company.

Disney did not clarify whether the $17 billion for Florida is part of the announced $60 billion parks investment. 

“We have a wealth of untapped stories to bring to life across our business,” Parks Chairman Josh D’Amaro said. “Frozen, one of the most successful and popular animated franchises of all time, could have a presence at the Disneyland Resort. Wakanda has yet to be brought to life. The world of Coco is just waiting to be explored. There’s a lot of storytelling opportunity.”

As for the scale category, Disney noted it has over 1,000 acres of land for possible future development, which it says is the equivalent of about seven new Disneylands. That doesn’t mean there will be seven new theme parks, and the company didn’t specify where all that land is. 

However, it wouldn’t be surprising to see more of Disney World’s over 25,000 acres of land in Florida get more use.

Then there are the fans, without whom Disney would not survive. Disney parks are among the most visited in the world, especially the Orlando ones. Magic Kingdom remains the most visited theme park in the world, and Disney Parks overall see about 100 million guests each year.

Of course, Disney wants to reach more people and make them fans of the parks as well. According to the company’s internal research, it estimates there are more than 700 million people who are fans of Disney but haven’t reached the parks. 

“Throughout our history, we’ve created enormous growth by investing the right amount of capital into the right projects at the right moment,” Iger said. “We are planning to turbocharge our growth yet again with a robust amount of strategic investment in this business.”

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This article appears in Sep 27 – Oct 3, 2023.