Tom Staggs reveals NEXT-GEN ideas

Yesterday, an important meeting has taken place, involving Tom Staggs, that is the chairman of the Disney Parks & Resorts. He talked about some project and their timeline (like the projects at Hong Kong Disneyland) and other interesting tidbits about the Disney Parks future. This includes some interesting details of the future way of queuing - that is - the Next-Generation queuing!

Read more about this exciting project, from the Disney Parks Blog: 

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Tom Staggs Offer Update on Disney Parks & Resorts

Today, Walt Disney Parks and Resorts Chairman Tom Staggs gave an update on the growth at Parks & Resorts, how we’re leveraging technology and what’s happening to continue to transform the guest experience at Disney California Adventure, Disney Cruise Line, Fantasyland at Magic Kingdom Park, Hong Kong and other areas. 

Take a look at what was said (It's a long talk, so we're reporting only the part of the talk that is about next-gen project. To read the whole talk, you can download the PDF file here!):

Disney Investor Conference - Walt Disney Parks And Resorts

Tom Staggs – (Chairman, WD Parks & Resorts)

...We know that our guests love creating great Disney memories with their

friends and their families. We also know that they don't exactly relish

waiting in line, checking at the resort, worrying about missing their

favorite attractions or feeling uncertain how to best navigate and access

our properties. In the coming years, we’ll introduce a broad, integrated

set of systems and tools that will help us create a more seamless,

personalized experience, and help guests to get more out of their visit

with us. That’s our ultimate goal – to welcome more and more people,

while making their experience more satisfying, more personal and more

immersive.

We’ve launched a number of initiatives over the years, including

FASTPASS and Magical Express, and they’ve been incredibly popular

with our guests. But we plan to take these kinds of enhancements even

further. Giving our guests faster and better access to the fun is the

centerpieces of our investment in technology. As a result, we are

currently developing an innovative system that will, in essence, create a

version of FASTPASS for their entire Disney vacations. Now we define the

guest experience as beginning from the time a potential guest sits down

at a computer or picks up a phone to make a reservation. Our new tools

will help them better understand all that we have to offer and better plan

their time with us. They’ll be able to create a personalized itinerary that

gives them the exact Disney vacation they want.

Guests will be able to reserve times for their favorite attractions and

character interactions… secure seats at our shows and spectaculars…

make dining reservations… and pre-book many other favorite guest

experiences – all before even leaving their house. We also plan to simplify

the check-in process so that guests will arrive at the resort with room

key in hand. They will be able to go straight to their room or a theme

park – again, allowing them to get to the fun faster.

We are also creating innovative new ways to pull guests into our stories.

A picture with a Disney princess is a quintessential part of a Disney

experience for many of our guests. So, in Fantasyland at the Magic

Kingdom, our Disney princesses will soon have dedicated homes

complete with Disney magic. And the tools that we’re creating will allow

them to greet and interact with our guests in an immersive and highlypersonalized

way.

Disney Investor Conference 7

2/17/11 – WD Parks & Resorts – Tom Staggs

We are rethinking the queue lines at many of our attractions, and are

enhancing them in ways that make them part of the show, essentially

creating a new “Scene One” for the attractions, if you will. For example,

the Winnie the Pooh attraction in Florida we just opened has a new

hands-on area where our younger guests can explore and play in the

Hundred Acre Wood. It’s been so successful that we’ve heard kids asking

their parents NOT to use FASTPASS in order to enjoy the new first scene

that much longer. You know we are doing something right if kids are

asking to wait in line.

We’re also developing the means to better assess and manage guest

traffic throughout our theme parks so that we can use entertainment

experiences, characters, and other forms of Disney magic to help improve

the flow of guests during peak periods… and drive increased utilization

as a result for our parks. Through this work, we will put better

information into the hands of our cast, so they can deliver even better

and more personalized service for our guests. Now, it will be some time

before we roll out the bulk of these initiatives, but we are well into

development, and in fact have a number of patents pending on our

approach. So it’s too early for me to say much more than that… but our

vision here is clear, and we see a real opportunity to further enhance and

differentiate the Disney vacation experience.

We’re excited about our growth prospects at our existing sites...

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Well, what's your take on NEXT-GENERATION queues? Do you like the idea of reserving your ride... from home? Or being able to be called by name by the Disney Princesses? To me personally, it looks like a huge improvement of the normal way of waiting for a ride, but I'm afraid this method will affect people like me (Annual Pass holders and repeated visitors).

Indeed, if visitors decide to reserve their ride's Fastpass three months before, how can I find one IN the parks?? Of course, as some people brought up, maybe with then new interactive queues, people will want to skip the Fastpass service in many (if not all) rides.... but then, if most of the people decided to not use the Fastpass, what would be its use?

There are stll many things that need to be clarified on this matter. Maybe we're not ready yet, for this kind of technology...