LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. -- Walt Disney Co. Chairman Michael Eisner Sunday unveiled a 10-year expansion plan at Walt Disney World, including proposals for a fourth theme park and a time-share venture.
The expansion includes 29 projects -- attractions, shows, hotels and renovations -- most of them at the Disney-MGM Studios park, which opened last spring.
'The next 10 years we're going to do nothing less than re-invent the Disney theme park and resort experience, and not just here in Florida, but in all our parks and resorts,' he said.
'By the year 2000, we expect to host over 100 million guests each year in Disney theme parks and resorts around the world.'
Eisner confirmed that Disney would add a fourth theme park to its Florida complex, to join the Magic Kingdom, EPCOT Center and Disney-MGM Studios.
'We will start a fourth theme park before the end of the decade,' he said.
He would give no specifics, but said planners were studying three prospects, one of them favored.
'We're not prepared to talk about it yet, because we are not absolutely positive that, one, it will be the one, and two, that it is fully developed enough to warrant the kind of scrutiny that you will look at, but we are getting very close to an announcement of what it will be,' he said.
Eisner also announced that Disney would launch a time-share vacation package for 500 investors at its Orlando-area parks.
Time sharing allows several investors to buy the same piece of property and to use it at different times, for only a limited number of days each year. It is a sector of the real estate industry notorious for deception and fraud.
Eisner would give no details about Disney's 'shared vacation ownership' program except to say it would give investors 'permanent ownership of the most popular vacation on Earth, a Walt Disney World vacation.'
Eisner would not release the cost of the expansion program.
'We haven't added it all up, because if we added it all up, it would be a headline that we probably wouldn't want to have. It's sizable, but it's all over 10 years. Also, a lot of it is in our annual budget.'
'The Walt Disney Co.'s overall strategic plan is to grow at 20 percent a year with a return on equity of 20 percent,' he said.
'Each project stands on its own. Each project must give the Walt Disney Co. our required return on investment,' he said.
He would not give details on financing, except to say it might come from a mix of internal cash and outside sources, but added, 'Everything we announced will definitely be built.'
Eisner, banking on the success of the movie 'Dick Tracy,' a Warren Beatty-Disney project being released this summer, spelled out plans for a ride and musical review based on the movie.
Beatty's last movie, 'Ishtar,' flopped.
'If it were to become an 'Ishtar,' we probably wouldn't go forward with the ride,' Eisner said.
Disney, which recently acquired The Muppets, also plans to complete by 1991 the Muppet Studios, an area featuring a ride and two shows.
Eisner said Disney also would open a 'Honey I Shrunk the Kids' attraction, based on last summer's movie.
'This is where kids will enter a world of 20-foot blades of grass and monster insects,' Eisner said.
On Friday, Eisner announced similar expansion plans in Southern California, including construction of a second California theme park, to be built either on property adjacent to Disneyland or in Long Beach, next to the Queen Mary, another Disney property.
On Saturday, Disney unveiled a new attraction at its MGM Studios park, 'Star Tours,' a ride based on the 'Star Wars' movies that has been popular at Disney's California and Japanese parks.
