That's probably correct. The margins at the US operating parks far exceed DLP (Disney has changed the financial model out there a lot, but they don't actually own the park outright anymore), and that resort is really just beginning to break even anyway. In TDL, they are paid a "consultant and licensing fee", but don't own that facility either. HKDL.............? Disney owns part of the resort, but it will be awhile before they really make anything from it. They collect pure profit from that one.
Operating Theme Parks is a huge capital, low margin, but decent cash flow business. There are only really two companies that have done it well on a large scale......Disney and Cedar Fair. They have wildly different scales, but the best margins in the business. Universal generates cash flow, but not much income from its parks. The current management seems to want to grow that business, but that could change again with the wind. Busch makes money, but I have understood that internally they have had really strong support from a few of their chief executives too.
So huge investment, low margin, and good CF. You have to have a really strong stomach to be a public company and be able to run theme parks. Disney will probably make 1.5 billion dollars income from their parks division, but they have to really work hard to get that. Really hard.
Of course, those numbers don't include the "synergy" of the licensed merchandise, or the value of self promotion on other properties like Pirates. If you tried to put a dollar amt. on that stuff, you would find out that having the theme parks generates a TON of income across the company.
