News Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin to eliminate 1136 employees

[TrainsOfDisney]

they said the same thing after 9/11 however conventions and business travel bounced back fairly quickly.

I was getting $149 AP rates at animal kingdom lodge for years after 9/11 and pop century phase II sat rotting away in plain sight until 2012. If that was fairly quickly...

Plus the technology wasn’t there. We didn’t even have the 1st gen iPhone yet.

I consider myself pretty introverted, but I'd die if I had to work from home. Humans need face-to-face interaction to remain healthy (and proper amounts of alone time).

Well nobody is forcing you to actually work from home. Work from home means work anywhere you want. You can work at a coffee shop, from a hotel... anywhere that you have Internet.

 

[tallica]

I was getting $149 AP rates at animal kingdom lodge for years after 9/11 and pop century phase II sat rotting away in plain sight until 2012. If that was fairly quickly...

Plus the technology wasn’t there. We didn’t even have the 1st gen iPhone yet.



Business travel was the topic not , Disney hotel capacity post 9/11 related to current business travel recovery which you originally stated.

 

[Lilofan]

I consider myself pretty introverted, but I'd die if I had to work from home. Humans need face-to-face interaction to remain healthy (and proper amounts of alone time).

I'm sure you wouldn't be the first but sitting on a park bench at MK, you can perhaps pick up Wi-Fi and work to your heart's content. You can spend your income at WDW. They need tourist dollars badly.

 

[Lilofan]

they said the same thing after 9/11 however conventions and business travel bounced back fairly quickly.

Trying to compare recovery from 9/11 to covid is a huge stretch.

 

[Kamikaze]

I consider myself pretty introverted, but I'd die if I had to work from home. Humans need face-to-face interaction to remain healthy (and proper amounts of alone time).

You know you can do other things with your life than work, right?

 

[Kamikaze]

they said the same thing after 9/11 however conventions and business travel bounced back fairly quickly.

2001/2002 was literally a different world. Even before COVID changed it.

 

[JoeCamel]

I'm sure you wouldn't be the first but sitting on a park bench at MK, you can perhaps pick up Wi-Fi and work to your heart's content. You can spend your income at WDW. They need tourist dollars badly.

 

[techgeek]

they said the same thing after 9/11 however conventions and business travel bounced back fairly quickly.

For business travel this is orders of magnitude worse then 2001, and 2001 was no walk in the park.

I was full time with a technical vendor at an Orlando convention hotel at the time. My department headcount was slashed by 50% within a month. Some positions were filled back in the following fall of 2002, but my company took the opportunity to ‘realign staffing to reflect a new business normal’, and began to rely more on contract labor going forward.

The hotel itself put major expansion plans immediately on hold that took 10 years to revisit. Business bookings took until 2003 to fully return to year over year growth, and the Orlando market was in a better position then many others in that regard.

There was no viable technical solution in 2001 to replace meetings. I had a lot of meetings over the next year about using DSL lines and videoconferencing tech to pull off remotes, but the logistics of that rarely were viable and it was of poor quality (this was all pre-HD). It did trigger an investment in network tech, and we installed the first WiFi access in the hotel the following spring.

Business travel actually took a greater long term hit in the 2008/09 crash. By many measures, it wasn’t until 2013 that it fully recovered.

In both of those crashes there was still plenty of work to be had. Today, there is literally zero.

 

[UNCgolf]

Well nobody is forcing you to actually work from home. Work from home means work anywhere you want. You can work at a coffee shop, from a hotel... anywhere that you have Internet.

To an extent. I wouldn't be able to work from any of those places because being out in public when dealing with sensitive, confidential information is a no no. Not just because of public Wi-Fi (which is mitigated by using a VPN), but even just other people walking by etc.

 

[TrainsOfDisney]

To an extent. I wouldn't be able to work from any of those places because being out in public when dealing with sensitive, confidential information is a no no. Not just because of public Wi-Fi (which is mitigated by using a VPN), but even just other people walking by etc.

Could you use your phones data?

I'm sure you wouldn't be the first but sitting on a park bench at MK, you can perhaps pick up Wi-Fi and work to your heart's content.

All of the deluxe hotels have business centers, before e-signatures were easy on an iPhone I would have to run to boardwalk to print and fax contracts.

 

[UNCgolf]

Could you use your phones data?

Maybe if I had an unlimited plan, although I think they usually cap speeds on those once you hit a certain number.

I actually wouldn't want to work in public anyways, though, so not an issue for me. Was just talking in general that there are people with jobs where working in public would be frowned upon if not outright banned by their company.

 

[lazyboy97o]

Could you use your phones data?

It can be a real slog if it is allowed. My cellular connection is typically slower than my home connection which is way slower than my office’s connection. I also like a larger screen and it’s a pain traveling with a monitor.

 

[TrainsOfDisney]

It can be a real slog if it is allowed. My cellular connection is typically slower than my home connection which is way slower than my office’s connection. I also like a larger screen and it’s a pain traveling with a monitor.

It’s always worked pretty well for me but I’m sure it varies depending on the type of work you do. One of my co-workers had to travel with multiple laptops and a whole setup in a pelican case... when we traveled out of an airport that didn’t have tsa pre-check he was in a very very bad mood!!

 

[lazyboy97o]

It’s always worked pretty well for me but I’m sure it varies depending on the type of work you do. One of my co-workers had to travel with multiple laptops and a whole setup in a pelican case... when we traveled out of an airport that didn’t have tsa pre-check he was in a very very bad mood!!

I know someone who had to travel like that but for the military. He says he quite enjoyed getting to show up with all of that gear and the paperwork telling TSA it was none of their business.

 

[JIMINYCR]

While I don't exactly disagree with you or techgeek, people who traveled for work enjoy interacting with people in person, and they are absolutely craving a return to normal.

While Zoom has many pluses, a conversation over Zoom just isn't the same as an in-person conversation. Much of business depends on relationships and trust, and the details of human interaction.

It will take some time to recover, and hybrid is here to stay, and we are in the middle of a paradigm shift, but people will still be fundamentally still be people after this is all over. Bottom line, we're social creatures.

We've been social since the dawn of our existence, and we'll continue to be social creatures for many generations to come (at least as long as we continue to exist).

My DS works for a major company that is already booking sites for next year in out of state managers and leaders conference sites ( Disney has been one in the past) because they can realize a huge savings by booking now because sites are offering huge discounts to just get things booked. So even though the outlook for 2021 is questionable, business goes on and business leaders understand the importance for in person group meetings. The importance an ability to produce results by really connecting and not coming over a site cannot compare. When they happen they may be set up different and look a lot different than before but they will still need to occur in some manner.

 

[lazyboy97o]

I don’t know about others but I find digital meets to be a bit more formal than in-person meetings. They only really work with one person speaking at a time and it’s sometimes hard to know when there is an appropriate pause to interject. There seems to be more rigidity in sticking to an agenda and having one person speak while others listen. They’re more presentations than a good back and forth discussion that sometimes devolves into joking, that relationship building that makes someone comfortable enough to blurt out what seems like a crazy idea but what turns out to be the best solution.

 

[TrainsOfDisney]

I don’t know about others but I find digital meets to be a bit more formal than in-person meetings. They only really work with one person speaking at a time and it’s sometimes hard to know when there is an appropriate pause to interject. There seems to be more rigidity in sticking to an agenda and having one person speak while others listen. They’re more presentations than a good back and forth discussion that sometimes devolves into joking, that relationship building that makes someone comfortable enough to blurt out what seems like a crazy idea but what turns out to be the best solution.

That’s a really good point. In some ways I could see corporate managers thinking on-line meetings were better because it was more formal, less joking, etc.

But in reality many good ideas started when having a casual talk in between sessions, or after the conference over dinner / drinks.

 

[Beenhereawhile]

they said the same thing after 9/11 however conventions and business travel bounced back fairly quickly.

The difference between 2001 and now....bandwidth.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Is anyone gonna point out that a lot of the draw of “business travel” is complete stupidity and/or Tom foolery? So it will survive in some form. It was never “all about work”...

...clutch your pearls, everyone.

I wonder if Marriott could pivot S&D to be a less expensive, more value parks accommodation?
Does WDW have a say over what prices they charge?
If they priced it at $130 a night they could fill it and maybe turn a profit?
Conventions will be a long time coming back if they ever do.

Silly boy...why would they want to make less money?

they said the same thing after 9/11 however conventions and business travel bounced back fairly quickly.

Nothing like that at all. In the end...that was a temporary and “isolated” incident.

Trying to compare recovery from 9/11 to covid is a huge stretch.

Apples to kiwis

You know you can do other things with your life than work, right?

Most people don’t work for “fun” or by choice.

Maybe if I had an unlimited plan, although I think they usually cap speeds on those once you hit a certain number.

I actually wouldn't want to work in public anyways, though, so not an issue for me. Was just talking in general that there are people with jobs where working in public would be frowned upon if not outright banned by their company.

Wait...data plans are still “a thing”?

 

[Nubs70]

I always felt like that, but I've actually really enjoyed working from home for the past 6 months.

However, I've been working on some pretty easy cases. There are other cases I've worked on in the past (and ones that some colleagues are currently working on) where I think WFH would be a nightmare.

I'm working on designing chemical feed systems for a new facility. Most customer contact is webex, phone and emailing of prints.

I finally received a physical print of a main water system. The print was 18ft long. Try following this print while scrolling on a 27" monitor. It will make you want to cry. Piped it onto my 125" screen and was only marginally better.

There is still a need for physical interaction.