Disney’s New Resort in Orlando, Fla., Offers African Wildlife-Reserve Theme.

Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News March 5, 2001 By Richard Verrier, The Orlando Sentinel, Fla. Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News Mar. 5–Fifteen years ago, the idea would have seemed preposterous: hotel guests in the middle of Central Florida peering out their balconies to view the zebra, giraffes and antelope grazing nearby.

But that was before Walt Disney World ramped up its hotel business in Orlando, tapping renowned architects to design heavily themed resorts modeled on everything from Atlantic City boardwalks to rustic national park hotels in the West.

Now comes Disney’s latest experiment in hospitality fantasy: a deluxe resort modeled on an African wildlife reserve.

When Disney opens Animal Kingdom Lodge — its 18th resort — on April 16, guests will experience what is perhaps the boldest example yet of Disney’s pattern of building hotels that are attractions in themselves: a 1,293-room safari lodge with balconies overlooking savannas with more than 200 animals and birds.

“We want our guests to really believe that they are staying in an African theme experience that they can get nowhere else in America,” said Don Robinson, senior vice president of resort operations at Disney World. go to website animal kingdom lodge

Once considered peripheral, resorts have become a key facet of Disney’s business and an important contributor to the bottom line of the world’s busiest tourist destination. Disney does not release financials on its hotel segment.

Disney executives also hope their newest hotel will attract more visitors to Animal Kingdom, which saw a slight decline in attendance in 2000, according to an industry survey. The new hotel is off Osceola Parkway just west of the theme park, which opened in mid-1998.

The high hopes for Disney’s newest hotel, however, could be dampened by an economic slowdown. Company executives have said Disney World has seen a falloff in advanced bookings for late spring and early summer.

Though Disney pioneered the idea of hotels as attractions, the concept has gained momentum throughout the hospitality industry in recent years, especially in Orlando and Las Vegas.

Other local examples of the trend include Universal Orlando’s Portofino Bay and the Hard Rock Hotel, which opened last month.

“The hotel industry has matured to the extent that they have realized that they aren’t just providing a place to sleep; they are providing an environment,” said Scott Brush, a Miami-based hotel industry analyst.

“What you’re doing with a resort experience is taking people away from their everyday lives and giving them something to relax and educate them. And Disney’s trying to do that with Animal Kingdom Lodge.” Inspired by the cultural splendor and exotic beauty of an African wildlife reserve, the six-story hotel imitates a South African kraal, or village.

It will feature hand-carved furnishings, a thatch-roof lobby with a stream running through it and a massive wood fireplace. The lobby gives a sweeping view of a 33-acre grassland filled with a variety of grazing animals, including giraffe, zebra, Thomson’s gazelles, ostriches, flamingos, African spoonbills and sacred ibises.

“We were trying to capture the spirit and romance of Africa,” said Jim Kwasnowski, senior development manager for Walt Disney Imagineering.

Most guests — about 80 percent — will be able to view animals as close as a 30 feet away from their balconies or from several other areas, including a landscape rock outcropping.

“Hotels are usually sold based on view, whether you are close to water or the beach,” Robinson said. “In this case, we’ve had to think about selling the rooms based on a view of the savanna. But it’s not guaranteed. You have to be careful about not guaranteeing a natural experience.” Disney says the animals, which were introduced several months ago, either came from the Animal Kingdom or were acquired from accredited zoos around the country. They are free roaming and return periodically to an on-site animal care facility for feeding and routine care, but their grazing activity won’t be regulated, Robinson said. see here animal kingdom lodge

The addition of the animals posed a special challenge for the contractors. Landscaping, which is typically done at the end of a project, had to be completed before construction so plants for the animals would have enough time to take root.

The Lodge also includes three African-inspired restaurants: Jiko, Boma and Mara.

To add to the authenticity, the Lodge’s 1,000 hotel staff will include about 60 African employees who work in Disney’s international program and will serve as “cultural representatives.” The architect who designed the Lodge is Peter Dominick Jr., who also designed Disney’s Wilderness Lodge and the Grand Californian, the luxury resort that just opened at Disney’s new Anaheim theme park, California Adventure.

Dominick spent several years on the project and was part of a team of Disney architects who visited South Africa in 1996 for creative inspiration.

“I believe you’re going to have an experience in this hotel which is unique and dramatic,” Dominick said. “Most people over the years have said that Disney is an organization that tries to manage and control a lot of things. But in this case, it’s all about the unexpected. You just don’t know when you’re going to see the animals and when you’re not. There should be a lot of sense of surprise in this.” Despite its appeal to the simple, frugal ways of African tribal life, the 800,000-square-foot resort is a luxury hotel, with room prices from $199 to $510.

The first 800 rooms will open in April, with the hotel fully opened by July.

Though it is unique, the Animal Kingdom Lodge fits a familiar and long-term strategy at Disney World to aggressively expand its hotel properties to keep its guests staying within the resort while they visit its theme parks.

Since the mid-1980s, when Disney World’s only company-owned hotels consisted of the Polynesian and the Contemporary, the vacation mecca has been on a hotel-building spree.

The lodge will be the 18th resort owned and operated by Disney World (the 28th property-wide) and the third resort in the Animal Kingdom area (The other two are Coronado Springs Resort, built in 1997; and All-Star Resort, which added a third hotel in 1999.) Today, there are more than 26,000 hotel rooms on Disney property.

And more rooms are on the way. Beyond Animal Kingdom, Disney later this year will open the first phase of a 5,760-room value resort called Pop Century. Disney also is building a 250-room time share resort, Disney’s Beach Club Villas, next to the Yacht Club, set to open next year.

Increasingly, the new hotels are marketed as attractions, places that transport guests into another world, whether it be Africa or Key West. It’s an idea that took shape in the early 1980s, when Michael Eisner became Disney’s new chief.

The strategy is simple: create a memorable vacation fantasy and customers will come back year after year.

So, like everything else at Disney, new hotels follow a story line. The story line for the lodge, intended to complement Animal Kingdom, goes like this: natives build a settlement around a spring from a rock outcropping that they need for subsistence.

“We want to make sure that when the guest comes and stays at Walt Disney World that they are immediately immersed in the Disney experience,” Robinson said. “We don’t want that to end when they go into the parks.” Disney has never had to worry about finding customers to fill its hotels. Occupancies at the company’s hotels typically run higher than 90 percent.

The average for Central Florida last year, excluding Disney properties, was 72 percent, according to Smith Travel Research.

Disney has already acknowledged that the slowing economy has brought reduced bookings throughout Walt Disney World. In fact, unlike the Portofino Bay, which was fully booked when it opened in 1999, the Lodge is still taking reservations for its opening weeks.

But company officials and analysts predict the Lodge will fare well despite the slowdown.

“Disney has proved that as long as they don’t out-price themselves they can keep a hotel as full as they want,” said Brush, the Miami-based analyst. “When the market isn’t strong, it’s the smaller hotels in poor locations that suffer.” DIS, V,