Theme parks, post-pandemic
Fun-seekers should brace for a new world.
ORLANDO, FLA.— Change is barrelling on, thanks to the coronavirus pandemic. Adjustments will be made in many ways — perhaps in every way — experts and analysts say.
Visitors should brace themselves for alterations, for example, in how to buy admission tickets, for spread-out seating arrangements aboard park rides and in restaurants, and in just how we wait, they say. In short, expect less touching. Attractions operators have not yet shared details on their plans. We asked experts to hone in on a few particular needs that they anticipate, creating this sampler of the challenges ahead in the travel and tourism industry.
Drawing the line
Virtual queues, in which guests have appointed ride times instead of winding through a tedious line, won’t work in current configurations “because there’s literally not enough room to put people elsewhere in the park,” says Brian Morrow, owner of B Morrow Productions, an Orlando-based design studio that works on projects for theme parks, resorts and museums.
“However, in the near future, I believe the parks will not be operating at their full capacity, nor will there be demand for their full capacity,” he says. “Then virtual queues may just be fine because you don’t have as many people to deal with.”
The large operators already are set up to do that, he says.
Current big-space queues, such as inside Fast & Furious: Supercharged at Universal Studios theme park, could be reconfigured to create staggered waiting rooms for virtual queuing. The setup for that park’s Race Through New York Starring Jimmy Fallon, where folks can spread out over a wide, multi-room space, could be a model for others, he says.
But a chief concern will be ensuring that visitors feel safe, and that may mean the removal of newly discomforting elements, Morrow says. He thinks the pandemic could prompt the end of 3D attractions and their reusable glasses. Going 2D has been an industry trend anyway, he says.
“I think things like 3D glasses are an easy grab where people are going to go ‘Uhhhh, I’d rather not,’” Morrow says. “We know they’ve been clean. They’ve been clean all along ... but OK, great, I don’t have to put it on my face, I’m ready to go.”
Some attractions might be just as good without 3D, Morrow says.
“You might find it not coming back.”
No-touch ticketing
There should be fewer admission sales at the attractions themselves, says Curtis Parks, managing partner at Icon Attractions, an entertainment-experience developer based in Maryland. In the industry, about 75 per cent of tickets are purchased on property.
“There is going to be a large push to move everything online, have reservation-based systems at the parks,” he says.
There is a lot of human contact in the current system, including having employees side by side to take payments.
“I think that’s probably going to be what’s most noticeable is that you’re going to have this no-touch environment, and that’s really going to reduce capacity in the parks as well,” he says.
Talk of taking folks’ temperatures before they enter probably will come to fruition, Parks says.
“I think that’s going to become the new bag check,” he says. “They are going to have delays getting to the properties because these larger operators are going to do temperature screenings, not only on their employees but also the guests coming into the facility as well.”
The meal deal
Dining may have a different vibe, at least in the short term, says AJ Wolfe, who runs the Disney Food Blog, a website independent from Walt Disney Co.
“I think decision-makers are considering servers wearing masks and undergoing health screenings daily, upping the overall cleaning protocol and using disposable menus, all while reducing capacity to 50 per cent in dining rooms to encourage social distancing,” she says.
Buffet-type restaurants could be switched to à la carte or family-style for a while, Wolfe says, but reservations could be easier to get if vacationing families are slow to return to Walt Disney World.
Character dining has returned to Shanghai Disneyland, which started a phased reopening in early March with social distancing and health screenings, Wolfe says.
“Disney was already modifying the character meet-andgreet experience for safety before the parks closed, so we may see that continue with face characters,” she says.
Coming in clean
Cleanliness and communication about that cleanliness will be important for hoteliers going forward, says Jan Freitag, senior vice-president of lodging insights for STR, a company that tracks analytics regarding the global hospitality industry.
“Obviously, cleaning will get much more intensified, and it’s going to be interesting to see how hotels ... communicate that something happened that the guests can see,” he says.
“Is it little flyers everywhere that’s ‘This was cleaned two hours ago’ or is it when you check in, you got an email that says every hard surface will be cleaned every two hours?” Freitag asks.
Keyless entry and remote check-in options should gain popularity, he says. Hotels may also consider leaving rooms empty for a couple of days after checkout and the ensuing cleaning.
Larger resorts may reintroduce elevator operators to reduce the number of human fingers pressing the buttons, he says.
Convention hotels may have clients that question the value and the safety of gathering. A group could expand beyond its usual ballroom setting to meet social distancing guidelines, or it could choose to spread out further — inside or outside the resort.
“Does it make sense to put our 30 best salespeople into the same ballroom or is that too dangerous? Should we just have them ... connect online?” Freitag says.
An option for hoteliers could be rethinking uses for rooms, he says.
“Does it make sense for hotels to say, hey, what you need is a place away from your kids with Wi-Fi that’s comfortable. And guess what? We have perfect offices for one person. They each have their own bathroom,” Freitag says.
“Can we just reconfigure hotel rooms to be the new office space?”