Looking back at the history of some of Disney’s endeavors, it’s always interesting to find
instances where there’s more to the story than we usually hear as guests.
In some cases there’s a complex web of reasons and causes behind an concept falling apart.
However sometimes the idea just… doesn’t work.
The Disney Institute is one of those times.
If you’ve never heard of the Disney Institute, that’s OK.
Out of Disney World’s forty-six year long history the Disney Institute was only really
public facing for about five.
Even then, it was an often overlooked part of the Disney World portfolio.
At its inception, the Disney Institute was a special part of the Walt Disney World resort
where guests, both young and old, would attend a series of courses and classes instead of
visiting the theme parks.
It was an idea born from CEO at the time Michael Eisner, who was inspired by his own experience
at the Chautauqua Institution in upstate New York.
The Institution, which offered a multi-day getaway filled with classes and seminars,
left Eisner thinking that there was a market for families who wanted to go on vacation
but also wanted a more enriched experience while doing so.
So in the mid 1990s The Disney Village Resort on Walt Disney World property was converted
into what would become The Disney Institute and on February 9th, 1996, it opened its doors to guests
The Institute offered over 80 different courses spread across a number of core studies, including
animation, television and radio production, culinary arts, gardening, and photography,
among others.
The impressive facilities at the institute included it’s own restaurant called Seasons,
a spa, a 225 seat indoor theater, a 1,150 seat outdoor amphitheater, a movie theater,
a closed-circuit TV studio with the call-sign DITV, and a radio station with the call-sign WALT
It was a pretty impressive resort with some pretty impressive offerings.
It’s no surprise then, that the cost of the experience was equally... impressive.
Prices ranged from $582 to $1986 per person depending on their length of stay, which was
anywhere from three nights to a full week, and the number of courses they took.
Adjusted for inflation that would be between $910 and $3107 per person today.
So what happened to the Disney Institute?
Well, it failed to take off from the very beginning.
Disney struggled to win over the market of guests looking for a high-brow experience
that they were aiming for.
Within the first year nearly half of the programs offered were cut in order to meet the reduced
demand, and within months Disney began to offer “preview days”, where guests visiting
Disney World could pay $49 for a day of courses.
It did little to help and in 2000, after four years of disappointing attendance, Disney
shifted the Disney Institute so that instead of courses for families on vacation, it would
instead focus on multi-day business training seminars.
This decision, in an odd way, would both work and fail at the same time.
It ultimately wasn’t enough of a turnaround to justify using the entire resort complex,
and so in 2003 the Disney Institute, as it was, would close.
The resort was then converted into a new Disney Vacation Club offering called the Saratoga
Springs Resort and Spa.
However that wasn’t the end of the Disney Institute.
Today it still exists, and it still functions as a single day or multi-day training institute
for businesses with a focus on courses such as Employee Engagement and Leadership Excellence.
However instead of taking place in one specific complex on property, the courses often involve
exploring backstage areas all across Walt Disney World.
It hasn’t gotten much cheaper, with single day courses costing around $1500 and multi-day
seminars costing as much as $5000, but with the primary focus being employees, it’s
typically the kind of expense a guest’s employer would cover.
So why did the Disney Institute, as it was in its original incarnation, fail?
Well to be honest, there’s no real complex answer there.
People just weren’t interested.
There wasn’t enough of a market of people who wanted to go to Disney World to learn.
Sure, it also wasn’t cheap, but there was a market out there for the general concept
of an educational experience.
After all it’s inspiration, the Chautauqua Institution, is still around today.
It just seems like the market for that kind of experience and the market of people who
visit Walt Disney World didn’t really overlap.
Ultimately it’s unfair to say it was all for nothing, as the Disney Institute did eventually
find a format that worked as a business.
However it still stands as a great example of how important it is, even for Disney, to
know who your target audience is and what they really want.