Most of its businesses rely on bringing thousands of people together in person — an awful situation to be in with a deadly virus in circulation.
The advent of several effective vaccines against COVID-19 and general administration of over 7 billion doses of such worldwide has allowed governments to ease restrictions, and all of Disney’s theme parks were reopened.
The figure may seem small for a company the size of Disney, but remember this is a significant improvement from last year when its theme parks lost over $1.6 billion in operating income in the same quarter.
Undoubtedly, visitors are excited at the chance to go back to a Disney park, and they are spending on average 30% more on a visit than the same time in 2019.
One of those changes was the development of the Disney Genie full-service app.
And it has the potential to improve the guest experience for the most impatient visitors willing to pay a premium to skip lines.
Folks can now order their food or snacks ahead of time, pay for it on the app, and get notified when it’s ready for pickup.
To put those figures into context, Disney overall made $14.9 billion and $15.7 billion in operating income in 2019 and 2018.