Have you recently experienced more incompetent, unintelligent, and even rude employees than you did in years past at the Orlando theme parks? Well, the Orlando theme park industry is running into a problem. They might not be willing to admit it, but while the theme parks continue to expand at an exponential rate, the talent in employment is running thin. Like you, many guests of Walt Disney World, Universal Orlando Resort, and even SeaWorld are questioning why the quality of service is declining so quickly. My hypothesis is that there aren’t enough qualified hirable people to run all the theme park services now in Orlando.
This is a fairly easy concept, but I’ll break it down. When Walt Disney World opened in 1971, it was fairly easy to create a full competent staff, as they only needed to hire people at three locations, the Magic Kingdom, Disney’s Contemporary Resort, and Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort. Today, Walt Disney World alone employs about 62,000 cast members. Now, add people needed at the Universal theme parks and hotels, everything at SeaWorld, and all the off-site hotels. The more staff you need, the harder it is to eliminate those who are less qualified. The problem isn’t that the employers (Disney, Universal, SeaWorld, and other) won’t hire better employees, it is that they can’t. There are only so many talented, happy, intelligent, efficient people in Orlando willing to work for just above minimum wage.
Let me be clear: Disney, Universal, and SeaWorld still hire some incredible workers. There are great people who work at all three of these locations, but the problem is that the number of unfit workers are growing. While many of the employees are great it only takes one or two bad experiences between a guest and an employee for the guest’s day to be ruined.
This problem will only get worse. Yes, Orlando is a growing metropolis, but not at the rate as the theme park industry is growing. With Star Wars Land, Toy Story Land, Pandora – The World of Avatar, and a potential new theme park coming to Universal Orlando Resort within the next 5-10 years, we might only be seeing the beginning of this decline in service.
What should the theme park industry in Orlando do? Well I’d argue that if these theme parks want to keep up the service that they are known for, then they better be prepared to pay their employees better. The pool of hirable employees is just too small when you are only willing to pay people just above minimum wage. And the increase in pay doesn’t need to be excessive, but a dollar or two more an hour might go a long way in attracting better quality employees.
