When Disneyland first opened in 1955, they tried something new - instead of one big entrance fee, visitors bought books of tickets labeled A through E. Think of it like a menu: A-tickets were for simple rides like the horse-drawn carriages on Main Street, while E-tickets got you onto the most thrilling adventures like Pirates of the Caribbean. People had to plan carefully so they wouldn't run out of their precious E-tickets!
Behind the scenes, Disney faced quite a challenge. Every day, workers sorted through mountains of used tickets. Even trickier was keeping track of all the unused tickets people saved for future visits - Disney had to account for the contingent liability in case people came back to use them years later.
When Walt Disney World opened in Florida in 1971, things got even more complicated. Now Disney wasn't just running rides - they had hotels, golf courses, and restaurants to manage too. The solution came in the 1980s with the "Passport" - one ticket that let you enjoy everything. No more counting tickets or making tough choices about which rides to skip.
A breakthrough came when Disney opened their Paris park in 1992. My twin brother Bob, who founded Hotel Information Systems, witnessed firsthand how Disney World in Florida was still struggling - they had a giant room of people sorting through activity coupons by hand!
His company won the contract to supply the software for all of the hotels owned by Disney Paris. Your hotel room key the only ticket you needed. It could pay for your room, entry to the park, meals, rides, golf, souvenirs - everything.
Bob made a proposal to the Disney Paris Board of Directors to solve the contingent liability accounting problem – for a hefty fee, of course. His clever solution? Any unused parts of your vacation package would expire upon checkout. This made everything much simpler to track and saved Disney from worrying about unused elements of a package while also removing the contingent liability from their books.
This smart system taught Disney a lot about how to run their huge vacation resorts more smoothly. While some people miss the old ticket books, today's all-in-one passes have made visiting Disney parks easier and more fun for everyone. The magic is still there - it's just wrapped in a more convenient package!
Bob said the software change they made for that hefty fee only involved changing two lines of code.
Great article of Information! I remember the 1955 opening and the excitement of it all, still unsurpassed!
One Christmas I gave him a mug that said " OF COURSE I'M RIGHT I'M BOB" I guess that says it all. :)