Nuggets of Disney Data in Anaheim Bond Documents

Disneyland officials have always guarded their attendance and revenue figures as if they were the map to the Seven Dwarfs’ diamond mine.

But readers willing to dig through the fine print in some recent Anaheim municipal bond documents will find several nuggets of information the Walt Disney Co. would normally be loath to part with.

Like the fact that “stabilized” attendance (i.e., no Main Street Electrical Parade frenzy) at the park is now about 13.8 million visitors annually. Or that Disneyland visitors in 1995 spent an average of $20.56 each for food and merchandise on top of the price of admission. Or that the average guest at Disney’s California Adventure, the planned companion park to Disneyland, is projected to shell out nearly 15% more than that for hamburgers and trinkets.

So what are these gems doing buried in the appendix of an eye-glazing debt prospectus? Well, with Anaheim selling more than $510 million in municipal bonds to fund public improvements to support Disney’s second theme park, potential investors wanted to know exactly how the city plans to pay them back.

Anaheim is banking on tourism-related tax revenue to repay the massive debt, a good portion of which will come from inside the Disneyland Resort. Thus, Disney was forced to reveal more about the cash machine lurking behind all that pixie dust as part of a study prepared for the city by Los Angeles-based PKF Consulting.

Mouse watchers figured the Grand Californian--the 750-room California Craftsman-style luxury hotel that Disney is building inside its new theme park--would be the most expensive hotel in Anaheim. But the PKF study provides a glimpse at just how much more expensive.

When the hotel opens with the park in 2001, the average daily room rate is expected to be $182 a night (as measured in 1996 dollars), according to figures supplied to PKF by Disney. That’s more than double the $86.50 average room rate achieved by Anaheim hotels last year. Additionally, PKF estimates food, beverage and merchandise sales at the hotel will average an extra $109 per occupied room.

That may seem out of the reach of the average family. Still, PKF estimates that the hotel will average 85% occupancy in its first year.

Marla Dickerson covers tourism for The Times. She can be reached at (714) 966-5670 and at marla.dickerson@latimes.com