After two years of tentative trial runs,
the Walt Disney Co. is ready to give its Adventures by Disney tour
product the full-throttle Disney marketing punch in 2007.
It was almost a
secret when Disney gave its tour product a trial run in 2005. It
offered the tours to 75 families, about 400 of its most loyal
Disney customers. It offered two itineraries, one in Wyoming and
one in Hawaii.
In 2006, Disney
launched the program to the general public with six itineraries,
booking about 1,000 guests for the year. Now, according to Ed
Baklor, senior vice president of Adventures by Disney, the product
is perfected and the company is pulling out all the
stops.
For 2007, Disney is
bringing back four of the 2006 itineraries and adding eight new
ones. The company plans to move 5,000 travelers in 2007.
Disney has honed
its formula, based on a family travel model with activities for
adults and children -- sometimes separately, sometimes together.
Storytelling, along with costumed characters, is a mainstay of the
product design.
"At the Louvre [in
Paris], parents are guided on a tour through the museum while the
kids go with a Disney cast member on an art detective game," said
Baklor. "In Venice, Marco Polo shows up. In Prague, Charles IV
tells why he threw people in the dungeon."
In London, the tour
attends Disney's stage production of "Mary Poppins," and the
families are invited backstage. In Vienna, they ride ponies at
Schoenbrunn Palace.
"I feel there's a
noble purpose in this," said Baklor. "We're connecting families
through the stories of the world."
Early-booking discount
The trips are
approximately a week in length. Prices start at $2,300. When the
2007 pricing is set and posted on the Web site in September, Disney
will offer an early booking discount of from $400 to $700. Prices
are discounted for children under 14.
Baklor said Disney
also plans to make an all-out pitch for travel agent business, with
collateral material that features sales tips for agents and DVD
demonstrations.
The list of
itineraries includes the American Southwest; Austria and the Czech
Republic; Costa Rica; England and France; Ireland; Italy; Southern
Italy; Mid-Atlantic States; Spain (Madrid/Andalucia); Spain
(Madrid/Barcelona); Tuscany; and
Wyoming.
To
contact reporter David Cogswell, send e-mail to [email protected].