Theme parks and tourist attractions all throughout Florida closed their gates in March to prevent the spread of COVID-19, but the future looks grim as park executives sit with Gov. Ron DeSantis to discuss reopening.
“We are obviously thinking a lot about when and how to reopen. We’ve got multiple teams working on a number of different scenarios,” said John Sprouls, the chief administrative officer for Universal Orlando Resort.
Although no concrete plans have been made, Universal has talked about providing on-site screenings for staff and guests at park entrances. They’ve even considered capping attendance to ensure they follow proper social distancing etiquette.
All of this brainstorming has occurred during Gov. Ron DeSantis’ Re-Open Florida Task Group meetings held this week. The executive committee is made up of CEOs and top managers who run the companies that fund our state economically. The meetings are conducted conference call style as to abide by Florida’s “safer-at-home” orders.
As they continue to discuss reopening the state to restore its profitable tourism life, theme park workers are losing their jobs.
The closures of the theme parks have led to the temporary layoffs of tens of thousands of workers in central Florida. Disney World began furloughing more than 43,000 employees this week, and SeaWorld has furloughed 95% of workforce at its dozen parks across the U.S. SeaWorld said this week it was losing on average $25 million a month with its parks closed, but it had enough access to cash to survive through the end of 2021 under current conditions.
The businesses are losing money, and so are their hard-working employees. These companies not only run theme parks, but hotels, restaurants, nightclubs, shops, and even TV production sectors. Abigail Disney, the granddaughter of Walt Disney’s brother, Roy Disney, even took to Twitter to express her critical opinion of the furloughs.
In her lengthy thread of Tweets, Abigail Disney detailed the company’s unfairness in money distribution, as well as the unfortunate scenario shareholders are to experience. According to Abigail Disney, $1.5 million in bonuses were distributed this year, and front-line workers saw none of it. “That’d pay for three months salary,” she tweeted.
