The Former Disney Executive Behind Abu Dhabi’s Theme Parks

Disneyland is coming to Abu Dhabi, but it will be familiar territory for some of the people who work there

Disney

When Abu Dhabi theme park operator Miral announced in May that it had signed a deal with Disney it left people wondering how it had done it.

Disneyland Abu Dhabi won’t just be the Mouse’s first outpost in the Middle East but the first which will be part of a resort featuring rival theme parks. It led some to speculate that Miral had bought its way into the Magic Kingdom but in fact, it had a much more powerful trick up its sleeve.

It soon became clear that money wasn’t the driving force because Disney declined an approach from Saudi Arabia which is famous for paying whatever it takes to bring tourism titans to its shores. When Disney’s chief executive Bob Iger was asked by CNBC why he chose Abu Dhabi, he reeled off a list of reasons.

First off was the catchment area as around 500 million people with enough disposable income live within a four-hour plane flight of Abu Dhabi. However, the same is true of Dubai, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait which are all close to Abu Dhabi, have bottomless budgets and explicit objectives to boost the importance of the leisure sector to their economies.

Iger also pointed out that the authorities in Abu Dhabi “build not only modern, but very, very high-quality buildings. They’ve been very methodical about how they’ve planned their land,” which is undeniably true of Abu Dhabi but also Dubai and some other cities in the region. He added that “most importantly, they love Disney” which is of course correct though it is something which is almost universal around the world.

The one reason Iger listed where Abu Dhabi stands well ahead of the competition is that it “has shown a great interest in arts and creativity.” Abu Dhabi isn’t just renowned in the region but throughout the world for its association with art and culture. The city has become a global cultural powerhouse thanks to the Louvre which will soon be joined by a Guggenheim, a Natural History Museum and a National Museum.

There is no question at all that the reasons Iger listed are all valid and contributed tremendously to Disney’s decision to bring its next theme park to Abu Dhabi. However, there was one reason he didn’t mention which isn’t just unique to Abu Dhabi, it’s also about as important as you can get – the caliber of the city’s theme parks.

Saying that Abu Dhabi is home to the region’s leading theme parks is an immense understatement. As this author reported in local newspaper The Khaleej Times, Warner Bros. World Abu Dhabi is the first theme park in the Middle East to appear on the Themed Entertainment Association’s Global Attractions Attendance Report. However, that doesn’t come anywhere close to telling the full story.

The three theme parks and water park on Abu Dhabi’s Yas Island aren’t just leaders in the region, they lead the way worldwide. Due to the intense heat in Abu Dhabi all of the parks are indoors and they are unquestionably paragons in their field given how immersive their environments are, how cutting-edge their attractions are, how spotless they are and how flawlessly they are run.

This report explained how each of Miral’s parks raised the bar since its first – Ferrari World Abu Dhabi – swung open its doors 15 years ago. This strategy culminated in the opening of SeaWorld Abu Dhabi which aces every other SeaWorld outpost and blows Disney’s own Living Seas pavilion in Orlando out of the water.

Miral’s tireless quest for the highest quality has given it a collection of parks which stands toe to toe with the very best from Disney and Universal. The same sky-high standards can be seen in all of Miral’s parks despite them having very different themes. It is a world away from even resorts like Disneyland Paris where one of its two parks is so much smaller than its neighbour that it is in the midst of construction to double in size.

All of Miral’s parks seems very familiar both in terms of their standards and their operations. There is a magic formula which keeps them at this level and it comes straight from the top.

By signing deals with Disney, SeaWorld and Warner Bros, Miral’s dynamic chief executive Mohamed Al Zaabi has quickly risen to become one of the most powerful people in the theme park industry worldwide. He is doing it out of passion, not purely because its his profession.

“I love being in theme parks and enjoy my time,” says Al Zaabi. So much so indeed that Miral’s headquarters is located right in the heart of Yas Island just a few minutes walk from Warner Bros. World and a few minutes drive from the other parks. In contrast, many Disney and Universal parks are thousands of miles away from their head offices.

Proximity to the parks enables Al Zaabi to regularly walk through them talking to guests and ensuring that standards don’t slip just as Walt Disney himself did through Disneyland in California. It has a magic touch.

Ferrari World originally had no land aimed at children but that began to change when when Al Zaabi was walking past Flying Aces, one of its roller coasters which reaches a height of 52 meters and hits speeds of up to 120 kilometers an hour.

As Al Zaabi explained to this author, “one day, a young girl was crying in front of Flying Aces. ‘Why are you crying?’ [I said] ‘I want to try this ride’ [she replied]. But it has a 130 centimeter [height] limitation. She was below 130. I immediately said to my team ‘let’s have a roller coaster for that young girl.’ You have it now. And this is one of the most successful areas in Ferrari World. I see dads and mums enjoying their time.”

Being so close to the parks enables Al Zaabi and his team to keep a close eye on even the tiniest of details. It goes some way to explaining why Miral’s parks look strikingly similar to the concept art of them which is uncommon in the industry as operators often treat the initial drawings like general guidance rather than blueprints. Miral takes it seriously from the start and that’s not all.

The boss of any company will confirm that the real secret to success is staff and Miral’s crew is amongst the most experienced in the industry as Al Zaabi explains. “Our chief delivery officer is the guy who delivered Warner Bros. He is the guy who delivered Yas Waterworld. He is the guy who delivered Ferrari. He is the guy who delivered SeaWorld and he will deliver Warner Bros. Phase 2. That is very unique. I don’t know any project director in the world who has delivered such iconic projects in the same place. That creates know-how.” Miral makes the most of it.

The company doesn’t just build and operate all of the parks on Yas Island, it also has a division which creates the experiences in them. It further explains why the standards in Miral’s parks seem so uniform. If this was left entirely to the brands hanging over the doors to the parks, the quality levels could differ widely between them.

Called Miral Experiences, the division also operates the parks and employs more than 3,000 people in Abu Dhabi. Its chief executive Julien Kauffmann is a 15-year veteran of Disneyland Paris where he rose to become its chief transformation officer.

Some of his most senior colleagues also come from Disney including Nicolas Gougenheim, senior vice president of business integration and optimization. His broad remit includes retail and food and beverage strategy, ride maintenance, facility asset management, health, safety, environment, security and warehousing. Gougenheim spent 14 years with Disney starting in Paris as director of business optimization where he project-managed the installation of the holiday overlays to the classic It’s a Small World attraction.

His colleague Naz Güven says she is responsible for “leading the design and production of all costumes across all properties – both in-house and with our external partners.” Entertainment creative senior manager Matt Cardy is in charge of “casting new performers, writing and directing shows, audio production, rehearsing stage shows and elevated character greeting shows, show quality management and character training.” Even development of the products sold in the parks on Yas Island is part of Miral’s remit.

As are the shows and entertainment. They are overseen by John Rowland, a 20-year theater veteran who made a name for himself working for impresario Cameron Mackintosh and Disney’s Theatrical division. He says that at Miral Experiences, he is “responsible for managing development of new shows and projects across the different properties.” This involves overseeing “the full journey of live shows, seasonal events, and immersive experiences – from initial concept through to final execution.”

Disneyland Abu Dhabi will follow this same format as Rowland says that, in summary, his role involves “the creative development and production delivery of world-class entertainment across some of the UAE’s most iconic destinations – including Ferrari World Abu Dhabi, Warner Bros. World Abu Dhabi, SeaWorld Yas Island, and the highly anticipated Disney Abu Dhabi.”

Of course, that’s not to say that Disney and the other brands whose names hang on the doors of Miral’s theme parks, aren’t involved with creative decisions relating to them. They have to give approval and their own creative teams are involved with the process but the point is that so are Miral’s.

It is a very different story at other Disney resorts as creative development is handled entirely in-house. The only slight exception is Tokyo Disneyland, which has a similar model to Abu Dhabi. It is owned and operated by the Oriental Land Company (OLC) which has its own creative teams and merchandise product designers who liaise with staff at Disney subsidiary Walt Disney Attractions Japan. Amongst its ranks are also creative managers as well as staff who oversee entertainment and operation costume design and production.

The one exception is the design of the hotels, theme parks and the attractions in them. That is still under the control of Walt Disney Imagineering (WDI) which is named after its imaginative use of engineering. OLC contracts and pays WDI for design services on new attractions and hotels and the same is true in Abu Dhabi.

Although WDI is in charge of this at all of Disney’s parks, in Abu Dhabi and Tokyo it is working for a paying client rather than calling the shots. This explains why the size, location and specification of Disneyland Abu Dhabi is Miral’s decision and so it should be as it is the local expert.

Although Miral is doing things its own way, with its highly skilled crew of Disney veterans it certainly isn’t heading into the unknown.