Another thread that implies a strategy or a top-down decision with far more conspiracy in it than is actually necessary. Obviously, Disney wants to maximize profits and provide the best guest experience. Those goals are often in sync, but sometimes not. Plus, long-term and short-term profit maximization are often not affected the say way by decision, and it is notoriously difficult to figure out how much to sacrifice in the short-term to make gains in the long-term.
Guests might want a drink and snack cart near the entrance to every attraction, but that probably has too much cost to it. Plus, best guest experience means different things to different people. If all ice cream carts went away, I'd notice not at all, but many others would be upset. OTOH, take away the churro carts, and MY VACATION IS RUINED, I tell ya, RUINED! Some guests want convenience, so they just want a cart serving what they want wherever they want. Other guests want the carts to fit with the show, so a you better not offer kaki-gori in front of the Norway pavilion.
Now, add to that the logistics of operating these carts. Stocking, staffing, predicting guest flow and desires, balancing asthetics of a cart against whatever it goes in front of, or next to, finding locations that are in the way enough so as to draw a crowd but out of the way enough so as to not block walkways, dealing with weather that affects demand, etc. There's a lot there. And that's assuming that the carts are, in general, profitable. I'm pretty sure they are, based on the economics, so we'll keep that assumption.
Sometimes, carts are going to be closed that clearly would have been profitable had they been opened. It's certainly possible that this is decision from management that "we'll sell the same number of drinks if we have 12 carts open as we would if we have 14", but that seems unlikely. It's too stupid to be believable. For more likely is that they believed demand for the day could easily be accomodated by 12 carts, and they were wrong -- demand was higher and they needed 14. Or they meant to open 14, but people called in sick and there were no replacements available.
So we should get upset that management messed up in its planning, and that they didn't build in flexibility (and yes, trimming flexibility might indeed be a top-down strategy, since flexibility costs), but to believe that there's strategy behind all of this that says "treat the guests like fools" is well...too much for me.
One needn't attribute to nefarious intent that which can be explained by incompetence.
Guests might want a drink and snack cart near the entrance to every attraction, but that probably has too much cost to it. Plus, best guest experience means different things to different people. If all ice cream carts went away, I'd notice not at all, but many others would be upset. OTOH, take away the churro carts, and MY VACATION IS RUINED, I tell ya, RUINED! Some guests want convenience, so they just want a cart serving what they want wherever they want. Other guests want the carts to fit with the show, so a you better not offer kaki-gori in front of the Norway pavilion.
Now, add to that the logistics of operating these carts. Stocking, staffing, predicting guest flow and desires, balancing asthetics of a cart against whatever it goes in front of, or next to, finding locations that are in the way enough so as to draw a crowd but out of the way enough so as to not block walkways, dealing with weather that affects demand, etc. There's a lot there. And that's assuming that the carts are, in general, profitable. I'm pretty sure they are, based on the economics, so we'll keep that assumption.
Sometimes, carts are going to be closed that clearly would have been profitable had they been opened. It's certainly possible that this is decision from management that "we'll sell the same number of drinks if we have 12 carts open as we would if we have 14", but that seems unlikely. It's too stupid to be believable. For more likely is that they believed demand for the day could easily be accomodated by 12 carts, and they were wrong -- demand was higher and they needed 14. Or they meant to open 14, but people called in sick and there were no replacements available.
So we should get upset that management messed up in its planning, and that they didn't build in flexibility (and yes, trimming flexibility might indeed be a top-down strategy, since flexibility costs), but to believe that there's strategy behind all of this that says "treat the guests like fools" is well...too much for me.
One needn't attribute to nefarious intent that which can be explained by incompetence.
Sorry.
