Disneyland Paris Reveals Record Productivity Of $130,000 Per Worker

Staff productivity at Disneyland Paris hit a ten-year high in 2022 with each of its employees generating an average of $131,219 (€119,676) in revenue for the company according to a review of its financial statements.

Revenue per employee is a key metric of productivity and the higher the result, the better as it suggests that the staff are performing at their optimum. It isn’t a measure of how much is directly generated by each employee but is simply calculated by dividing the company’s revenue by its total number of staff.

The ideal scenario for any company is generating the highest revenue from the smallest number of staff though this has no connection to profit as that depends on how much the workers are paid. If a small number of staff generate a tremendous amount of revenue but are paid a tremendous amount it could drive the company into loss.

Likewise, it has no connection to employee satisfaction as staff can be satisfied if they are generously rewarded regardless of how much revenue the company generates. Conversely, they can be dissatisfied even though (or sometimes, even because) they are generating a great deal of revenue but believe they are not being paid adequately by the company they work for.

Indeed, as we have reported, Disneyland Paris has been gripped by strikes over the past month with more than 1,000 protesters marching through its two parks on a number of occasions leading to the cancelation of shows and entertainment. The next protest is scheduled for Monday June 19, according to the DLP Report social media channel, which tracks the strikes and the disruption they cause.

For decades, observers have attempted to identify what makes Disney’s theme parks different to their competitors and ultimately it is down to the calibre of the staff who are known as Cast Members because of the role they play in a themed environment. They cast a powerful spell on guests and the happier the customers are, the more they spend and the more they want to return which leads to the company generating even more revenue. It stands in stark contrast to the scenes in a recent DLP Report video which went viral and shows a crowd of guests in front of Sleeping Beauty castle booing when the evening entertainment was called off by the strikers.

Strikes in a theme park are a worst-case scenario for any operator so keeping the staff content seems like a no-brainer for Disneyland Paris, especially as its operating company, Euro Disney Associés, made a $51 million operating profit last year as we revealed in the Sunday Times.

“We see the figures, the profits they have made, the wealth that has been communicated by the Walt Disney
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Company,” said Ahmed Masrour, one of the disenchanted Cast Members, in a recent interview with French news magazine L’Obs. “The visitors sometimes chat with us and say to us: ‘You’re right, we don’t understand why the ticket price has increased, why the prices of all the products at Disneyland have increased, starting with car parking, while you employees, your salary does not follow suit.’ So it’s just a simple equation: Let’s share the wealth fairly.”

According to DLP Report, during a video address to staff earlier this month, Disneyland Paris’ president Natacha Rafalski said that although the business has recently become profitable, it needs to be careful so it won’t negotiate on pay until a pre-arranged review in August.

There is no doubt that the $51 million profit made by Disneyland Paris is a drop in the ocean compared to the $7.9 billion that Disney itself banked from its global parks, experiences and products operations last year. However, the striking staff do not seem to be asking for much.

Amongst other things, their demands include improvements to their length of service bonus, increased pay for working on Sundays and a monthly wage increase of $215 (€200). This wouldn’t come to much more than $3 million across the company’s workforce of more than 15,000 staff so it shouldn’t significantly erode its profit margin. However, that could be just the start.

As we have reported, Disneyland Paris has increased its spending on staff by 40.1% over the past decade to a record $816 million (€761 million) in 2022. It doesn’t stop there as employees of Disneyland Paris reportedly received a further 5.5% pay increase at the start of this year.

That still wasn’t enough for them because rampant inflation has cast a dark spell over France. According to a recent report in business magazine Barron’s, since Russia invaded Ukraine last year, the cost of electricity in France has jumped almost four times whilst flour, butter, and eggs are all about 50% more expensive.

Regardless of the cause, the net effect is the same for staff – salaries that were previously sufficient are no longer enough. There is no doubt that their employer is responsible for them but inflation is entirely out of its control so it has no visibility on if or when it will rise again. If Disneyland Paris raises wages every time inflation rises it could drive the company into loss and, in turn, that could jeopardise its future and its employees’ jobs along with it. Accordingly, their strikes could actually be counter-productive.

However, perhaps the biggest irony of their demands can be seen when reviewing the financial performance of Disneyland Paris over the past decade as shown in the table below.

Over the decade to 2022 Disneyland Paris finished the year in the red seven times with its total operating loss coming to a staggering $1.3 billion (€1.2 billion). Its bottom line was even bleaker as it only made a net profit twice and burned up total losses of $2.4 billion (€2.2 billion). It goes some way to explaining why the president of the park says that its finances are in a fragile position after just one year of profits. Why the company made losses before then isn’t relevant here. Its reaction is.

When most companies haemorrhage money they deal with it by slashing staff numbers and salaries. Not Disneyland Paris. The Euro Disney Associés financial statements show that over the decade to 2022, staff numbers increased 9.2% to 15,450 whilst the company’s spending on its staff rose by a staggering 40.1%.

When Disneyland Paris was loss-making it would have been perfectly reasonable for it to tighten its belt by letting staff go and cutting pay but instead it took on more workers and increased its spending on them. Now those same workers are asking for a share of the profits and going on strike because they haven’t been given it.

That said, a quick look at the table above shows that the company now has a similar number of staff to 2017 (it fell after that due to the pandemic) but they are each producing 27.7% more revenue on average so surely they should be rewarded accordingly. Disneyland Paris is a for-profit organization not a social enterprise, so that argument doesn’t hold water. Nevertheless, the data shows that the company’s spending on its staff increased by 18.5% between 2017 and 2022 and, crucially, it was loss-making at the start of that period so in most other companies its staff would have been at risk. That’s clearly not a situation that the staff should aim for so comparing now to 2017 is a non-starter.

It leaves Disneyland Paris in a position where it is making a profit at a time when its staff are in dire need of another pay rise, even though they got one just a few months ago. It is a dilemma and the company is likely to be damned if it does and damned if it doesn’t. The company can however look to its peers which is where the metric of revenue per employee comes into its own.

The Investopedia definition of revenue per employee states that the metric “is most useful when looking at historical changes in a company’s own ratio or when comparing it against that of other companies in the same industry.” The most logical comparison is Parc Asterix as it is the most-visited theme park in France after the two at Disneyland Paris.

Themed to a comic series about ancient French warriors, Parc Asterix is also located on the outskirts of Paris and attracted 2.6 million visitors last year according to the Global Attraction Attendance Report from the Themed Entertainment Association and infrastructure analysts AECOM. Its attendance compares to 5.3 million at the Walt Disney Studios in Paris and 9.9 million at the neighboring Disneyland Park. Parc Asterix is operated by Grévin et Compagnie and, as the table below shows, it has far fewer staff than Disneyland Paris (1,246 compared to 15,450). However, the two can be compared on a like for like basis by looking at the revenue per employee and the company’s spending per employee.

Grévin et Compagnie spends 19.5% less on each staff member than Disneyland Paris and this amount has risen by less than half the increase at Disneyland Paris over the past five years. Most significantly, the Parc Asterix staff generate 15.1% more revenue than those at Disneyland Paris. So, in conclusion, Parc Asterix spends less on each staff member than Disneyland Paris does and its staff make more revenue for the company than their counterparts at Disneyland Paris but they are not on strike. That really is a whole new world.