Jan. 30, 2024
Top Risks for Theme Parks in 2024
This week we recap the https://finance.yahoo.com/news/comcast-corporation-nasdaq-cmcsa-q4-142425693.html from Universal Studios, discuss IAAPA's...
This week we recap the latest earnings from Universal Studios, discuss IAAPA's new office in the middle east, and review the "Top 2024 Risks" from the Eurasia Group.
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From our studios in Los Angeles and
Tampa. This is Green Tag. I
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was like, where Scott this week? He's in Tampa, right, that's
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all right? I did too.
I was like, where am I?
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Oh? Yeah, Gait, I've
got the colorful backdrop. I'm comfortable year
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and two. Yes. Anyway,
this is Green Tag Teing Park in thirty
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where we break down the top theme
park news of each week and discuss why
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it matters to you. Ask some
questions, and we don't have all the
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answers, but we try and ask
interesting questions or at least make you think
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about some of these topics. Today, we're going to be going over Universal
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earnings, the new AYAPA Middle East
office, and then another special segment from
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Philip because I'm determined to bring in
outside things to our show. Good luck
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they're interesting anyway. So the earnings
earnings Universal came out. I'm going to
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link in the show notes to the
full transcript of the meeting if you would
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like to read through them or scan
through them. But basically, the short
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version is it's all the presentation,
of course, as they always are.
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The presentation from Universe was all positive, right, They're like, look at
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our revenue Oh, we's so fantastic
the theme park sections. In particular,
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they mentioned that the theme parks alone
saw a revenue increase of twelve percent and
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also an EBITA increase of two percent, which is the more impressive number there.
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Specifically, their CFO said quote these
strong results were again driven by growth
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at our international parks, especially as
Osaka continues to benefit from strong demand from
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Super Nintendo World, driving higher attendance
and per cap spending relative to both last
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year and pre pre pandemic levels.
In Hollywood, we also continue to benefit
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from the positive consumer reaction to Super
Nintendo World, driving strong attendance and growth
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in per caps and resulting in Hollywood's
best fourth quarter EBITA in its history.
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In Orlando. Yeah, that one's
impressive. In Orlando. Our results are
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also strong, with attendants in line
with twenty nineteen pre pandemic levels and revenue
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sustainability ahead substantially ahead, and then
a few later in the call, they
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referenced it again by saying, regenerated
to one point seven billion in free cash
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flow this quarter and thirteen billion for
the year, and we achieve this while
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absorbing meaningful capital investments to expand our
footprint and further strength in our domestic broadband
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network, scale our streaming, and
support the build of the Epic Universe.
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So basically, basically, they're like, we saw increase in revenue and increase
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in EBITDA and all of that is
still in light of the fact that we
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are spending a lot of money on
new things. And that's all great.
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I just want to point out here
not I'm always negative, but I just
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wait. But yeah, but hold
on, Philip is on the sunhet.
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It's just that being in the industry, I think we have a little bit
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of a different perspective, you know, than everyone else involved in this,
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including the fans and whatnot. Like, first of all, we know that
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the Epic Universe project is behind schedule. Like we all know. I mean,
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come on, like you know we
can't. I guess we can't.
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Probably everybody listenings under an NDA about
it. But you know, we all
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know we know that it's behind I
think that's safe to say. We also
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know that they're spread very thin,
and that basically they're trying to keep their
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numbers high because they want to you
know, return dividends and whatnot and keep
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it all positives. They can get
better access to capital and whatnot. But
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the cost of that is literally budget
cutting, that is kind of undercutting the
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potential future success of these projects.
That's I'm not sure what we can say
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but that I'm saying that. Well, basically, it's it's business one oh
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one. I mean you, if
you, if you when you're when you're
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looking at when you're looking at how
quote unquote, how are we doing financially,
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you have to take into consideration what
you're spending and what you're bringing in,
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and if you're bringing in more than
you're spending, you're doing good.
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It's it's not it's not rocket science, and it's not true just of universal
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and it's not true just of theme
parks. This is this is business one
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oh one. So if you want
to make and I also want to point
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out because we do a lot of
you know, we we present a lot
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based on the data and the facts
that we have and by we I mean
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Philip has gathered. But but the
truth be told, data can be made
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to say anything. You can use
data to create any any story, any
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scenario you want it to create,
and you can soft sell, hard sell
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whatever. I think the important thing
to recognize is you know it is is
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I can. I have no.
I have no really hard data personally.
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No. Philip may have extra,
but I have no hard data personally that
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says that Epic Universe is behind schedule. But I'm pretty sure it is because
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it is a major theme park.
All major theme parks run behind schedule,
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especially now because again supply chains EBB
and flow, labor situations, ebb and
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flow. You know, even even
weather can impact the the construction of a
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brand new park, and especially a
part of this epic magnitude. So see
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what I did there, You see
what I did there. So again,
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that's that's par for the course.
I don't think that's anything to be either
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stressed about or or oh there.
I can't believe they're behind scheduled. Well,
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you know what, I don't think
I've ever been a park that's opened
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actually on schedule. Fully, what
they'll do is they'll change how much they
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open it. They'll they'll they'll adjust
accordingly, because again, it's business.
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So to quote one of my favorite
mentors, nothing is ever as good or
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as bad as we want to make
it out to be. The truth of
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the matter is it's coming along.
I think what is important to recognize,
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though, is universal at least from
a guest experience standpoint, has been spreading
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itself very very thinly based on a
lot of the things that we've reported here.
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So it either means that they are
and again I have no insider information
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here, but it either means that
they are incredibly confident in the successes that
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they're putting out there, or they
have a bunch they have very deep pockets,
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they have a bunch of money that
they can spend. I know that
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was true right after a Wizarding World
opened. So there's there's a lot of
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there's a lot of reasons. I
just am hoping that with all of these
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new projects that that they have been
announcing and that they are in the process
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of constructing and getting ready to open, that they have enough funding to keep
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it to the high quality level that
their audiences expect, because, let's face
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it, universal audiences expect things to
be top notch and with you know,
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the things that Philip just mentioned as
far as why things are doing so well
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in both Osaka and in California is
because it is well. It's riding on
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the shoulders of the hive, the
fifty thousand pound gorilla of of Superintendo World.
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So Yeah, there's that. Well, the Universal has been Universal has
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been incredibly successful in taking in taking
ips and strong eye piece, and you
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know, we always say it,
we always say it, it's all about
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the how well do they how well
do they actually create the experience. And
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they've been really good in the past
about taking these these mega brands and delivering
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something that guests want to see.
So it sounds like they've just done it
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again with Superintended World, and perhaps
that is what is giving them the confidence
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or the finance to continue to expand
and offer more and more product or develop
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more and more product. Yeah,
that would be my guest. Sure,
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Yeah, I think it's funny.
I think exactly what you mentioned about,
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you know, Epic will open.
How much of Epic is up for debate.
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And I have a joke with a
lot of the people we know on
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the team that like, you know, opening day is going to come and
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it's going to be here are our
restrooms? Aren't they great? And it'll
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be like and then a period you
know, the rest will be coming six
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But but again I don't I don't
think that's untrue of pretty much any major
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theme, right, I mean,
yeah, look at even you know,
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but yeah. You look at Disneyland
in the fifties, you look at at
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Walt Disney World Resort in the seventies, you look at I mean, but
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they're they're always going to have things
that are still coming down the line.
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And quite honestly, there are times
from my past experience, there are times
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where that is actually intentional so that
you get not one visit went to so
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right, we'll see, Okay,
anyway, so the second story here IAPA.
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It's like, we don't keep going
on that, right AYAPPA has opened
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up an office in the UAE in
the Middle East, and they have a
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new director of operations and a new
office, and I think that's that's pretty
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much it. Uh. The press
release gets a little bit of background on
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the director's experience or in the region. I don't say. I don't really.
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So here's the thing. I don't
have much to I think we'll talk
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a little bit more about this in
our final segment about the Middle East is
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a region a little bit. But
I don't have too much else to say
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about this because we've talked about how
this region is important, so it should
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be obvious and it's exploding. In
fact. The thing that surprises me about
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this is that how late they are
is what I would say, Like,
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I'm shocked that it took them this
long to get an office and a branch
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there. I mean like shocked in
a way. It's like, in one
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sense, it's a little late to
the game. In the other sense,
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we know that the game is different
in the in the Middle East, so
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it's it's definitely that thing where you're
like, yeah, it's that they're different
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rules here. But I think it's
high time. And I'm a little surprised
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they didn't give some sort of nod
towards that in the press release, right,
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like I would you know. That's
more what I'm surprised about is like
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they didn't say something about how how
much of an expansion this region is and
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how they been studying it for years, and you know, I have blah
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blah blah blah whatever. It's like, here's this guy, he's experienced that
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we have an office now, thank
you. Well. I think that I
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think that what's important to recognize is, first of all, let's let's recognize
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that when we say things like the
Middle East, that is many countries,
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many cultures, many different ways of
doing business, and you know, they
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based on on my experience when I
was in Abu Dhabi. You know,
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the the the opening of the Sea
World, Abu dhabis island or SeaWorld,
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Yes island, Abu Dhabi was the
next the next jewel in the crown,
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and there are there have already been
announced. There's already been announced quite a
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few expansions. Uh, Wizarding World
of Harry Potter is going to come to
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Warner Brothers World on Yas Island.
So that's Abu Dhabi. Uh. You
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look at Dubai and some of the
parks that were actually out in front of
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the curve, and some of them
Bollywood have already closed their doors and others
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are having ongoing challenges because again there's
certain things they didn't take into consideration,
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like nobody wants to be outdoors in
August in Dubai. So these things are
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continuing to evolve. It's not just
I'm excited to see that Iappa is focusing,
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is putting an office there to give
them a little bit more focus,
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because it will help also hopefully give
them a little bit more balance, because
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I think they you don't just want
to show up if everything's going right,
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everything's going well, you don't need
to be there. You don't need an
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organization like AYAPPA to help. And
now, you know, expanding outside of
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the UAE to things like Saudi Arabia, which has been you know, in
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the news quite a bit. The
Flag's Park there and and I although because
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of an NBA, can't tell you
what the project is, but I will
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be heading off there next week.
Yeah, next week. So there for
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a project. There's a lot of
growth. There's a lot of growth,
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and there's a lot of government support
for said growth. So once now that
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there is government support in both the
UAE Saudi, it's a good time to
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have the IAPPA there so that they
can continue to share the knowledge, the
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international knowledge that they have gathered throughout
their existence. And it is I think
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it's about the right time. I'm
not sure I agree with you, Philip
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in the fact that it seems late. I think it seems about right.
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I don't think if it was there
too early, it would just be supporting
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one country's efforts to expand. I
think that the expansion that's now happening in
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Saudi is the tipping point where it's
like IAPPA needs to be there now.
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And I'm excited to see that they
are opening an office and if I the
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office is based in Dubai, is
it not? Yeah? Is that what
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I read? So the office is
based in Dubai, which is which is
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great because they were really the first
area in the region, the first emirate
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certainly to dig deep into attractions and
tourism. And I think that with Iappa
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being there and being recognizable enough that
they have set up an office that I
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think it's going to be I think
it's going to beneficial and I think it's
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about the right time because we've had
successes. We've had already, like I
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said, some less than successes Bollywood, but you know, so it's it's
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time to bring them in and make
them a player. I also think this
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is something that I want to make
sure everybody is clear about. It's not
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just what it's going to bring to
the Middle East, it's also what i
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APPA is going to be able to
bring back to the rest of the world
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by having a presence, by having
boots on the ground there, they're going
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to be able to have firsthand experience
as to what's happening there, and hopefully
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that will enrich the industry as a
whole worldwide. Yeah, Okay, I
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was just going to add to that
that last point. I don't want to
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stay too long on this story,
but my last point was just that I
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agree with that last, very last
point because that's from me as Gantam's perspective.
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That's what I'm thinking about when I
read this, as I'm like,
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oh, now I have somebody.
You know, we're IAPPA members. We've
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vented at AAPA forever and we couldn't
make it out to all of the functions
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that they've been doing in the Middle
East. But now that there's an office
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there, we might have a touch
point of someone to talk to when we're
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trying to figure out how to make
sure that you know, when we have
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projects, because we have projects in
that area. So now we have someone
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to help in that area. So
that's that's that's what I'm thinking. That's
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my last point on that. So
yeah, sure, and to help and
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to help with distributorship and you know
all that sort of stuff. So okay,
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So I think the rest of the
show, I want to talk about
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the Top Risk of twenty twenty four. So this is this was a big
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report that was put out by the
Arasia Group, and the Asia Group is
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essentially they're a a risk consultancy firm, so they put together each year they're
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kind of top risks, and based
off all their analysis is what they think
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the top risks are for international business
basically, so specifically companies that are doing
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business in more than one country,
kind of you know, doing business around
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multiple tiers. So I think this
is this is not made just for theme
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parks. So the lens we're going
to take with this is what do we
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think specifically impacts from this list of
the theme parks. There's ten of them.
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We're not going to go through all
ten of them because of that reason.
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But basically, but you know,
no spoiler, it's like spoiler alert,
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but the first three of them have
to do just with wars, right,
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the United States versus itself, the
Middle East, and the Ukraine,
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and we all, you know,
we don't we're not going to talk about
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those, all of these portions because
that's not we're not experts on that.
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And also it's not a direct correlation
to the theme parks as we see it,
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or you know, I'm sure it
is, but we can't talk about
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it because we're not experts in that. So so we're going to talk about
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the things that right where it's really
going to impact. It's going to impact
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tourism overall. And I think that's
something that we can just blanketly state.
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But here's some things that we can
dive into a little bit. Yes,
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so number four, which we'll start
with number four, which is the ungoverned
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AI And I'm going to read a
little excerpt from this just to give you
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as an understanding of it, and
then we can talk about it. From
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the report, it says gaps and
AI governance will become evident in twenty twenty
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four. As regulatory effects falter.
Tech companies remain largely unconstrained, and far
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more powerful AI models and tools spread
beyond the control of governments. AI will
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continue to improve quickly, with capabilities
doubling roughly every six months. Hear that
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doubling every six months, three times
faster than Moore's law GPT five. The
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next generation of open Ay's large language
model is set to come out this year,
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only to be rendered obsolete by the
next as of yet inconceivable breakthrough in
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the matter of months. As AI
models become exponentially more capable, that technology
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itself is outpacing efforts to contain it
in real time. The two biggest risks
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from this report that stand out for
them in twenty twenty four are disinformation and
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the imminent risk is proliferation. So
disinformation and proliferation, I will say,
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I think this is something that we're
not talking about very much in the theme
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park sphere, and I think part
of it is because it's it's still yet
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to be unknown how much it will
impact it. But there's even if you
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just look at disinformation plus pliferation right, like the amount of I mean,
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part of me feels like in the
theme park sector, we're like a like
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a like a child walking into a
like a trying to cross the five just
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we're and you're just like, oh
my god, because to me, I
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see so much, so many problems. I see nobody trying to put up
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security measures to prevent them. And
at the same time, according to this
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report, it almost does a matter
because the AI is developing so quickly.
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By the time you even try and
make a security measure, it's going to
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be obsolete. So you know,
I'm worried about disinformation even in the parks,
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I mean just even in like disinformation
about tickets for sale. That what's
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going on with every news and anything
to do with the parks or any of
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the online presence, any of that
disinformation about that. There's you know,
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there's already whole news websites that have
been developed that just use AI to create
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I mean, there's so much content. And I'm going to also lend my
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personal experience as a content creator and
as a newsperson into this to give you
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more context. I have seen already
this, This is so on point.
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I've already seen an exponential growth in
the amount of AI generated content that I
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am trying to figure out if it's
real or not, or even when I'm
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making these show. Now it's the
amount of like you can just tell it
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they I generated, even whole just
there's so much out there that now we're
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not I'm not sure how to even
fact check this. I don't know what's
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going on. And even in my
pages have been attacked. It like my
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websites have been attacked by so many
new like bots you know that are attacking
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websites that have causing our serve to
clog up. And also just my personal
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pages, like my Facebook pages,
my are online pages, all sorts of
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I mean, there's a tax by
so many some of them are obvious,
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right, but just so many like
fake comments and and just fake noise just
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everywhere, and it's it's already ridiculous. And and I'm and and it's ridiculous,
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and it's just me. It's it's
like, you know, I know
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that that meta is is trying to
develop things that detect it, so like
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it's ridiculous. But that's with somebody
actively putting money into trying to prevent it.
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It's it's still ridiculous. So I'm
just concerned about how it's gonna reach
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out and hit the theme parks and
that if no, if nobody is focusing
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on this, what it's gonna what
it's going to do. I mean,
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taking control of the my Disney Experience
app, being able to hack food orders,
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you know, being able to interfere
with the face scanning and people being
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I mean, it is like,
that's my rant. Anyway, I'm sorry,
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I have nothing positive to say.
No, that's I think that's I
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think that's fine. Well, I
mean, let's just I mean, it's
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clearly it's clearly a significant challenge because
it is now right now, you know,
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we've just just recently we saw the
report that the doomsday clock is at
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ninety seconds to midnight right now to
the end of the planet. And AI
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is now one of the key factors
in either accelerating or slowing down that that
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ticking clock as to how much longer
the planet is going to exist. And
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in fact, the debate right now
that I've seen in a couple of different
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articles is which is which is more
of a detrimental factor, climate change or
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AI. And and I think that's
I think that in and of itself says
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says more than enough. But you
know, it's it's interesting to me,
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and I think we all need to
be aware of it. But you know,
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to your point, Philip, it's
developing so quickly that it's almost it's
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almost like it's almost like trying to
trying to get a sip of water from
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a fire hydrant. It's it's coming
so quickly. I'm not sure how much
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we we have to control about it. We absolutely have to be aware of
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it. I mean, you know, obviously, at this point in time,
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when this is being recorded, the
whole, the whole, inappropriate AI
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generated photos of Taylor Swift, I
mean, that's that's not that's so minuscule
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in comparison to what this could do, you know, to your point,
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it can. It could pretty much
conceivably take over any anything that is is
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computer affiliated, which by the way, is everything. So to me,
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what it suggests is we need to
continue to have parallel backups for everything we
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need to have. You know,
we've all been working so hard to create
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this, this sky net world that
we need to make certain that we have
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backups for everything. And again,
sometimes those backups maybe something as stupid as
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some sort of documentation that is not
that is in the real world. You
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know. Again, technology swings back
and forth. This is just a huge
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swing, and it's a huge swing
that has actually helped helping to generate itself.
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So when I make the skynet reference, I'm not joking. I mean
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we are We are in a situation
where the only way to develop this was
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a statement that was made not too
long ago. The only way to develop
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some of the new AI is through
AI. So sure of this is not
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even being developed by human brains.
This is being developed by something that was
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developed by that was something was developed
by that was something that was developed by
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human brains. So I just think
we need to make we need to make
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certain that we keep an eye on
this situation, and as as parks and
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professionals, we recognize that you know, AI is not the almighty answer it
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is, but it is certainly something
that is there and we can't ignore it.
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We didn't mention in this one of
the biggest pieces, which is just
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that you know, I think most
people are just worried about it's impact on
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jobs. So I don't think you
should discuss I think you know, you
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should keep that in mind as well, But again I'm not We're not experts
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in that, and the same thing
we just said apply to that. We're
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not sure you know how that's going
to impact these parks, although we believe
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that the parks are mostly insulated because
you know, you like, there's so
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much the parks are a service industry, so it's a relatively insulated from that
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port. To me, the only
advice I'm going to put here at the
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end as a media professional is just
I think that your media and tech department
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departments need to be talking about this. You know, you need to be
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having a meeting about this every week, and you need to be thinking about
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how to move your audience over to
an owned and trusted platform that you maintain
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as a way to kind of have
a stopgap measure against the onslaught of misinformation,
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right, like you know, like
essentially, you need to be able
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to make sure that you can get
all of your cast and all of your
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you know, all of your your
team members and the public and as much
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people and be like, hey,
you know, these are our official sources
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of information. Here's officially where you
know, if you know, here,
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here's the drive with the official information
on it, all these things, like
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all that kind of stuff. Like
I think that's it's time for reminders and
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for training on all of those things
as to where where people can go to
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get the correct information, including your
team members, because it's not just going
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to be the guests that could be
on slided by misinformation. It could also
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be your own team members causing you
know, chaos in the you know,
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in your organization. So that that's
as a media entity, that's my thing,
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and you know, that's I'm gonna
leave it there. So, uh.
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Risk number six is a no China
recovery. And we have talked about
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this as well, you know,
significantly, But essentially it's just this report
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is laying out some of the complications
that the China's going to have in recovery,
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and including their zero COVID rebound policy, the real estate weaknesses, their
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low external demand, which would be
international demand for Chinese exports, specifically from
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US and Europe, will prove less
resilient than in twenty twenty three. Government
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economic response has been lacking. So
basically, there's a lot of factors in
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here's an excellent write up in here, But those factors we've already seen this.
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I've seen this at Gantum, and
so I think we already know feel
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this in the industry, and we've
talked about the dampening effect this is going
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to have on the tourism. But
you know, it's a great perspective on
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these things. I don't know what
else is say. I think we covered
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it last time in terms of just
watch it and you know, of course,
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keep it, keep a skeptical eye. You know, at least for
359
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me at Gantum, we're we've looked
at our policies to twenty twenty four and
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we've changed some of them around basically
to add a little bit more insurance withinternational
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with larger national orders like this or
anything that would potentially be sold to China
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or go into the just a little
extra insurance so that we're protected against you
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know, projects failing or things like
that happening. So that's what I would
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say. Well, and keep in
mind that when we actually started doing this
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this podcast, China was the it
was the place location where everything was.
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It was the place and everything was
growing in it, and so you know,
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it was growing and we can come
up with you know, we could
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probably talk to fifteen different experts and
come up with fifteen different reasons as to
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why we're now in this position where
the recovery is so slow, and it's
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basically, you know, to me, it's if I'm going to stupefy it
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down, like make it super dumb
so I can understand it. It's it's
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like a child who learned to run
really quickly and has tripped and now is
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afraid to get up. So we'll
see, we'll see how it all or
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is unable to get up one of
the other, so we'll see how it
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how it all pans out. Number
nine is El Nino is back. And
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this goes to what we've talked about
with some of the climate related problems with
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as Scott even mentioned earlier, I
mean, you know, most theme parks
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are outside, and so that puts
US at at an increased vulnerability when it
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comes to climate related issues. So
I'll read an excerpt here from the report.
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El Nino will also increase the chance
of natural disasters caused by extreme weather
381
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events such as fires, cyclones,
landslides, and floods. These occurrences will
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bring downside risks for homes, businesses, and infrastructure, and with important implications
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for a global insurance industry already reeling
from the consequences of climate change. And
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you know this is a four is
the weather pattern that repeats every four years
385
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for context, right, so we
know that you know it's going to be
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here, and we know that it's
going to be the most intense on record
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because the temperature is already increasing.
I will say, I think for the
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US we're relatively insulated from stuff like
this because we have the infrastructure and we
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have the capital, you know,
we have we kind of we have the
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ability a little bit to mitigate some
of this stuff. Or where I think
391
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you're going to see problems with this
is again in the country's outlined in the
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impact study here, But you know
there are countries that have been trying to
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get there tourism more off the ground
that I think this is going to really
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make it difficult for them to do
because again, the weather will impact the
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infrastructure outside and people going to places, and also the heat. If the
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heat was a problem last year in
Orlando, let me tell you, it's
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going to be a bigger problem this
year. That's exactly what I was going
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to say. I mean, we've
already talked about two different both both SeaWorld
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Parks Entertainment and and Disney in their
in their their profit statements, and you
400
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know when they were talking about their
their profit and loss for the year,
401
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blaming the weather as being an issue. Well, it's going to continue and
402
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be worse. I think that's something
we have to take into consideration that yes,
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it will impact us here in the
US and anything we can do to
404
00:28:51.039 --> 00:28:53.880
you know, if you're looking at
a SWAT analysis, this is one of
405
00:28:53.960 --> 00:28:57.799
those possible threats and we should be
prepared for them. Yes, And I
406
00:28:59.000 --> 00:29:02.279
was my suggest this one's gonna be
the same thing as the previous one.
407
00:29:02.279 --> 00:29:03.839
You need to be having like an
all hands kind of weekly to discuss like
408
00:29:04.119 --> 00:29:07.720
what is our contingency, what are
we going to do if it's too hot?
409
00:29:07.759 --> 00:29:10.720
For people. How are we gonna
make sure that people can still enjoy
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00:29:10.759 --> 00:29:15.440
our parks with the heat, with
the cold, with the wind, damage
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00:29:15.480 --> 00:29:18.880
to structures, that type of thing. And number ten, which also relates
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00:29:18.880 --> 00:29:22.680
to us here, is they're calling
a risky business. But it's essentially what
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00:29:22.720 --> 00:29:26.519
we talked about with the Disney versus
De Santists struggle. You know, the
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00:29:26.640 --> 00:29:32.160
report says companies caught between conservatives and
progressives will nonetheless see their decision making autonomy
415
00:29:32.240 --> 00:29:34.880
limited and their cost of doing business
rise. Forced to navigate conflicting laws,
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00:29:34.920 --> 00:29:38.599
regulations, and court rullings across red
and blue states, business leaders will find
417
00:29:38.640 --> 00:29:45.039
themselves in a lose lose environment of
higher policy uncertainty and regulatory risk. I
418
00:29:45.079 --> 00:29:48.200
think that sums it up pretty well. I was gonna say, I don't
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00:29:48.240 --> 00:29:52.240
know how, I don't know how
much more clear that could be stated.
420
00:29:52.319 --> 00:29:56.759
I think that's that's spot on.
And you know, people will want to
421
00:29:56.799 --> 00:29:59.279
stick their heads in the ground and
say, no, it's just because the
422
00:29:59.359 --> 00:30:03.000
other side is stupid. The truth
of the matter is it's because both sides
423
00:30:03.039 --> 00:30:04.200
are being stupid, and this is
a perfect example of it. And I
424
00:30:04.200 --> 00:30:08.079
think it's really summed up that the
lose lose scenario is exactly what's going to
425
00:30:08.160 --> 00:30:11.759
end up happening, and I think
we just need to be aware of that
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and make decisions whenever we are creating
policy, or working to create policy,
427
00:30:18.240 --> 00:30:22.440
or supporting people who are creating policy, to keep this in mind. We
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00:30:22.559 --> 00:30:27.200
are not trying to create a win
devastation scenario. We need to create win
429
00:30:27.240 --> 00:30:30.880
win scenarios to try to avoid lose
lose scenarios. And that's going to be
430
00:30:30.920 --> 00:30:33.960
really difficult, and it's going to
be a very slow turnaround, I think,
431
00:30:34.359 --> 00:30:37.160
but we'll see where it goes from
here. One thing I do know
432
00:30:37.240 --> 00:30:40.200
for certain, though, and that
is that we are out of time.
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00:30:40.880 --> 00:30:45.519
It has been We've completed our thirty
minutes, and I am thrilled that you
434
00:30:45.720 --> 00:30:49.079
sat through yet another half hour with
us. So on behalf of Philipernandez with
435
00:30:49.079 --> 00:30:55.079
GANDAM Lighting and the Hunted Attraction Network
and myself Scott Swinson with Scott Swinson Creative
436
00:30:55.119 --> 00:30:59.519
Development. This is Green Tag Theme
Park in thirty and we will see you next week
1
00:00:00.240 --> 00:00:04.320
From our studios in Los Angeles and
Tampa. This is Green Tag. I
2
00:00:04.400 --> 00:00:07.719
was like, where Scott this week? He's in Tampa, right, that's
3
00:00:07.719 --> 00:00:09.240
all right? I did too.
I was like, where am I?
4
00:00:09.359 --> 00:00:12.839
Oh? Yeah, Gait, I've
got the colorful backdrop. I'm comfortable year
5
00:00:12.839 --> 00:00:15.640
and two. Yes. Anyway,
this is Green Tag Teing Park in thirty
6
00:00:16.239 --> 00:00:19.960
where we break down the top theme
park news of each week and discuss why
7
00:00:20.000 --> 00:00:22.679
it matters to you. Ask some
questions, and we don't have all the
8
00:00:22.679 --> 00:00:25.199
answers, but we try and ask
interesting questions or at least make you think
9
00:00:25.199 --> 00:00:28.280
about some of these topics. Today, we're going to be going over Universal
10
00:00:28.320 --> 00:00:34.479
earnings, the new AYAPA Middle East
office, and then another special segment from
11
00:00:34.479 --> 00:00:40.520
Philip because I'm determined to bring in
outside things to our show. Good luck
12
00:00:40.600 --> 00:00:45.600
they're interesting anyway. So the earnings
earnings Universal came out. I'm going to
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link in the show notes to the
full transcript of the meeting if you would
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like to read through them or scan
through them. But basically, the short
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version is it's all the presentation,
of course, as they always are.
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The presentation from Universe was all positive, right, They're like, look at
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our revenue Oh, we's so fantastic
the theme park sections. In particular,
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they mentioned that the theme parks alone
saw a revenue increase of twelve percent and
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also an EBITA increase of two percent, which is the more impressive number there.
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Specifically, their CFO said quote these
strong results were again driven by growth
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at our international parks, especially as
Osaka continues to benefit from strong demand from
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Super Nintendo World, driving higher attendance
and per cap spending relative to both last
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year and pre pre pandemic levels.
In Hollywood, we also continue to benefit
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from the positive consumer reaction to Super
Nintendo World, driving strong attendance and growth
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in per caps and resulting in Hollywood's
best fourth quarter EBITA in its history.
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In Orlando. Yeah, that one's
impressive. In Orlando. Our results are
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also strong, with attendants in line
with twenty nineteen pre pandemic levels and revenue
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sustainability ahead substantially ahead, and then
a few later in the call, they
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referenced it again by saying, regenerated
to one point seven billion in free cash
30
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flow this quarter and thirteen billion for
the year, and we achieve this while
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absorbing meaningful capital investments to expand our
footprint and further strength in our domestic broadband
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network, scale our streaming, and
support the build of the Epic Universe.
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So basically, basically, they're like, we saw increase in revenue and increase
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in EBITDA and all of that is
still in light of the fact that we
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are spending a lot of money on
new things. And that's all great.
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I just want to point out here
not I'm always negative, but I just
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wait. But yeah, but hold
on, Philip is on the sunhet.
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It's just that being in the industry, I think we have a little bit
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of a different perspective, you know, than everyone else involved in this,
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including the fans and whatnot. Like, first of all, we know that
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the Epic Universe project is behind schedule. Like we all know. I mean,
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come on, like you know we
can't. I guess we can't.
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Probably everybody listenings under an NDA about
it. But you know, we all
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know we know that it's behind I
think that's safe to say. We also
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know that they're spread very thin,
and that basically they're trying to keep their
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numbers high because they want to you
know, return dividends and whatnot and keep
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it all positives. They can get
better access to capital and whatnot. But
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the cost of that is literally budget
cutting, that is kind of undercutting the
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potential future success of these projects.
That's I'm not sure what we can say
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but that I'm saying that. Well, basically, it's it's business one oh
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one. I mean you, if
you, if you when you're when you're
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looking at when you're looking at how
quote unquote, how are we doing financially,
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you have to take into consideration what
you're spending and what you're bringing in,
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and if you're bringing in more than
you're spending, you're doing good.
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It's it's not it's not rocket science, and it's not true just of universal
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and it's not true just of theme
parks. This is this is business one
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oh one. So if you want
to make and I also want to point
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out because we do a lot of
you know, we we present a lot
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based on the data and the facts
that we have and by we I mean
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Philip has gathered. But but the
truth be told, data can be made
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to say anything. You can use
data to create any any story, any
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scenario you want it to create,
and you can soft sell, hard sell
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whatever. I think the important thing
to recognize is you know it is is
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I can. I have no.
I have no really hard data personally.
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No. Philip may have extra,
but I have no hard data personally that
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says that Epic Universe is behind schedule. But I'm pretty sure it is because
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it is a major theme park.
All major theme parks run behind schedule,
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especially now because again supply chains EBB
and flow, labor situations, ebb and
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flow. You know, even even
weather can impact the the construction of a
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brand new park, and especially a
part of this epic magnitude. So see
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what I did there, You see
what I did there. So again,
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that's that's par for the course.
I don't think that's anything to be either
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stressed about or or oh there.
I can't believe they're behind scheduled. Well,
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you know what, I don't think
I've ever been a park that's opened
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actually on schedule. Fully, what
they'll do is they'll change how much they
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open it. They'll they'll they'll adjust
accordingly, because again, it's business.
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So to quote one of my favorite
mentors, nothing is ever as good or
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as bad as we want to make
it out to be. The truth of
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the matter is it's coming along.
I think what is important to recognize,
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though, is universal at least from
a guest experience standpoint, has been spreading
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itself very very thinly based on a
lot of the things that we've reported here.
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So it either means that they are
and again I have no insider information
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here, but it either means that
they are incredibly confident in the successes that
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they're putting out there, or they
have a bunch they have very deep pockets,
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they have a bunch of money that
they can spend. I know that
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was true right after a Wizarding World
opened. So there's there's a lot of
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there's a lot of reasons. I
just am hoping that with all of these
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new projects that that they have been
announcing and that they are in the process
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of constructing and getting ready to open, that they have enough funding to keep
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it to the high quality level that
their audiences expect, because, let's face
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it, universal audiences expect things to
be top notch and with you know,
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the things that Philip just mentioned as
far as why things are doing so well
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in both Osaka and in California is
because it is well. It's riding on
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the shoulders of the hive, the
fifty thousand pound gorilla of of Superintendo World.
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So Yeah, there's that. Well, the Universal has been Universal has
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been incredibly successful in taking in taking
ips and strong eye piece, and you
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know, we always say it,
we always say it, it's all about
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the how well do they how well
do they actually create the experience. And
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they've been really good in the past
about taking these these mega brands and delivering
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something that guests want to see.
So it sounds like they've just done it
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again with Superintended World, and perhaps
that is what is giving them the confidence
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or the finance to continue to expand
and offer more and more product or develop
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more and more product. Yeah,
that would be my guest. Sure,
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Yeah, I think it's funny.
I think exactly what you mentioned about,
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you know, Epic will open.
How much of Epic is up for debate.
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And I have a joke with a
lot of the people we know on
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the team that like, you know, opening day is going to come and
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it's going to be here are our
restrooms? Aren't they great? And it'll
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be like and then a period you
know, the rest will be coming six
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But but again I don't I don't
think that's untrue of pretty much any major
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theme, right, I mean,
yeah, look at even you know,
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but yeah. You look at Disneyland
in the fifties, you look at at
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Walt Disney World Resort in the seventies, you look at I mean, but
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they're they're always going to have things
that are still coming down the line.
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And quite honestly, there are times
from my past experience, there are times
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where that is actually intentional so that
you get not one visit went to so
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right, we'll see, Okay,
anyway, so the second story here IAPA.
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It's like, we don't keep going
on that, right AYAPPA has opened
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up an office in the UAE in
the Middle East, and they have a
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new director of operations and a new
office, and I think that's that's pretty
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much it. Uh. The press
release gets a little bit of background on
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the director's experience or in the region. I don't say. I don't really.
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So here's the thing. I don't
have much to I think we'll talk
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a little bit more about this in
our final segment about the Middle East is
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a region a little bit. But
I don't have too much else to say
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about this because we've talked about how
this region is important, so it should
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be obvious and it's exploding. In
fact. The thing that surprises me about
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this is that how late they are
is what I would say, Like,
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I'm shocked that it took them this
long to get an office and a branch
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there. I mean like shocked in
a way. It's like, in one
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sense, it's a little late to
the game. In the other sense,
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we know that the game is different
in the in the Middle East, so
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it's it's definitely that thing where you're
like, yeah, it's that they're different
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rules here. But I think it's
high time. And I'm a little surprised
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they didn't give some sort of nod
towards that in the press release, right,
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like I would you know. That's
more what I'm surprised about is like
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they didn't say something about how how
much of an expansion this region is and
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how they been studying it for years, and you know, I have blah
139
00:10:01.879 --> 00:10:05.200
blah blah blah whatever. It's like, here's this guy, he's experienced that
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00:10:05.279 --> 00:10:07.840
we have an office now, thank
you. Well. I think that I
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think that what's important to recognize is, first of all, let's let's recognize
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that when we say things like the
Middle East, that is many countries,
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many cultures, many different ways of
doing business, and you know, they
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based on on my experience when I
was in Abu Dhabi. You know,
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the the the opening of the Sea
World, Abu dhabis island or SeaWorld,
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Yes island, Abu Dhabi was the
next the next jewel in the crown,
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00:10:39.279 --> 00:10:43.840
and there are there have already been
announced. There's already been announced quite a
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few expansions. Uh, Wizarding World
of Harry Potter is going to come to
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Warner Brothers World on Yas Island.
So that's Abu Dhabi. Uh. You
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look at Dubai and some of the
parks that were actually out in front of
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the curve, and some of them
Bollywood have already closed their doors and others
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00:11:05.399 --> 00:11:09.720
are having ongoing challenges because again there's
certain things they didn't take into consideration,
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like nobody wants to be outdoors in
August in Dubai. So these things are
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00:11:16.519 --> 00:11:22.919
continuing to evolve. It's not just
I'm excited to see that Iappa is focusing,
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00:11:24.960 --> 00:11:26.159
is putting an office there to give
them a little bit more focus,
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00:11:26.240 --> 00:11:31.799
because it will help also hopefully give
them a little bit more balance, because
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00:11:31.000 --> 00:11:35.080
I think they you don't just want
to show up if everything's going right,
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everything's going well, you don't need
to be there. You don't need an
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00:11:37.759 --> 00:11:41.960
organization like AYAPPA to help. And
now, you know, expanding outside of
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the UAE to things like Saudi Arabia, which has been you know, in
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00:11:46.720 --> 00:11:54.559
the news quite a bit. The
Flag's Park there and and I although because
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of an NBA, can't tell you
what the project is, but I will
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00:11:56.440 --> 00:12:05.279
be heading off there next week.
Yeah, next week. So there for
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00:12:05.759 --> 00:12:09.559
a project. There's a lot of
growth. There's a lot of growth,
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and there's a lot of government support
for said growth. So once now that
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there is government support in both the
UAE Saudi, it's a good time to
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have the IAPPA there so that they
can continue to share the knowledge, the
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international knowledge that they have gathered throughout
their existence. And it is I think
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it's about the right time. I'm
not sure I agree with you, Philip
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in the fact that it seems late. I think it seems about right.
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I don't think if it was there
too early, it would just be supporting
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one country's efforts to expand. I
think that the expansion that's now happening in
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Saudi is the tipping point where it's
like IAPPA needs to be there now.
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And I'm excited to see that they
are opening an office and if I the
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office is based in Dubai, is
it not? Yeah? Is that what
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I read? So the office is
based in Dubai, which is which is
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great because they were really the first
area in the region, the first emirate
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certainly to dig deep into attractions and
tourism. And I think that with Iappa
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being there and being recognizable enough that
they have set up an office that I
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think it's going to be I think
it's going to beneficial and I think it's
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about the right time because we've had
successes. We've had already, like I
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said, some less than successes Bollywood, but you know, so it's it's
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time to bring them in and make
them a player. I also think this
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is something that I want to make
sure everybody is clear about. It's not
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just what it's going to bring to
the Middle East, it's also what i
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APPA is going to be able to
bring back to the rest of the world
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by having a presence, by having
boots on the ground there, they're going
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to be able to have firsthand experience
as to what's happening there, and hopefully
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that will enrich the industry as a
whole worldwide. Yeah, Okay, I
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was just going to add to that
that last point. I don't want to
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stay too long on this story,
but my last point was just that I
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agree with that last, very last
point because that's from me as Gantam's perspective.
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That's what I'm thinking about when I
read this, as I'm like,
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oh, now I have somebody.
You know, we're IAPPA members. We've
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vented at AAPA forever and we couldn't
make it out to all of the functions
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that they've been doing in the Middle
East. But now that there's an office
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there, we might have a touch
point of someone to talk to when we're
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trying to figure out how to make
sure that you know, when we have
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projects, because we have projects in
that area. So now we have someone
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to help in that area. So
that's that's that's what I'm thinking. That's
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my last point on that. So
yeah, sure, and to help and
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to help with distributorship and you know
all that sort of stuff. So okay,
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So I think the rest of the
show, I want to talk about
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the Top Risk of twenty twenty four. So this is this was a big
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report that was put out by the
Arasia Group, and the Asia Group is
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essentially they're a a risk consultancy firm, so they put together each year they're
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kind of top risks, and based
off all their analysis is what they think
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the top risks are for international business
basically, so specifically companies that are doing
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business in more than one country,
kind of you know, doing business around
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multiple tiers. So I think this
is this is not made just for theme
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parks. So the lens we're going
to take with this is what do we
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think specifically impacts from this list of
the theme parks. There's ten of them.
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We're not going to go through all
ten of them because of that reason.
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But basically, but you know,
no spoiler, it's like spoiler alert,
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but the first three of them have
to do just with wars, right,
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the United States versus itself, the
Middle East, and the Ukraine,
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and we all, you know,
we don't we're not going to talk about
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those, all of these portions because
that's not we're not experts on that.
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And also it's not a direct correlation
to the theme parks as we see it,
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or you know, I'm sure it
is, but we can't talk about
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it because we're not experts in that. So so we're going to talk about
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the things that right where it's really
going to impact. It's going to impact
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tourism overall. And I think that's
something that we can just blanketly state.
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But here's some things that we can
dive into a little bit. Yes,
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so number four, which we'll start
with number four, which is the ungoverned
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AI And I'm going to read a
little excerpt from this just to give you
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as an understanding of it, and
then we can talk about it. From
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the report, it says gaps and
AI governance will become evident in twenty twenty
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four. As regulatory effects falter.
Tech companies remain largely unconstrained, and far
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more powerful AI models and tools spread
beyond the control of governments. AI will
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continue to improve quickly, with capabilities
doubling roughly every six months. Hear that
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doubling every six months, three times
faster than Moore's law GPT five. The
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next generation of open Ay's large language
model is set to come out this year,
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only to be rendered obsolete by the
next as of yet inconceivable breakthrough in
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the matter of months. As AI
models become exponentially more capable, that technology
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itself is outpacing efforts to contain it
in real time. The two biggest risks
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from this report that stand out for
them in twenty twenty four are disinformation and
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the imminent risk is proliferation. So
disinformation and proliferation, I will say,
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I think this is something that we're
not talking about very much in the theme
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park sphere, and I think part
of it is because it's it's still yet
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to be unknown how much it will
impact it. But there's even if you
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just look at disinformation plus pliferation right, like the amount of I mean,
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part of me feels like in the
theme park sector, we're like a like
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a like a child walking into a
like a trying to cross the five just
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we're and you're just like, oh
my god, because to me, I
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see so much, so many problems. I see nobody trying to put up
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security measures to prevent them. And
at the same time, according to this
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report, it almost does a matter
because the AI is developing so quickly.
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By the time you even try and
make a security measure, it's going to
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be obsolete. So you know,
I'm worried about disinformation even in the parks,
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I mean just even in like disinformation
about tickets for sale. That what's
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going on with every news and anything
to do with the parks or any of
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the online presence, any of that
disinformation about that. There's you know,
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there's already whole news websites that have
been developed that just use AI to create
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I mean, there's so much content. And I'm going to also lend my
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personal experience as a content creator and
as a newsperson into this to give you
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more context. I have seen already
this, This is so on point.
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I've already seen an exponential growth in
the amount of AI generated content that I
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am trying to figure out if it's
real or not, or even when I'm
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making these show. Now it's the
amount of like you can just tell it
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they I generated, even whole just
there's so much out there that now we're
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not I'm not sure how to even
fact check this. I don't know what's
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going on. And even in my
pages have been attacked. It like my
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websites have been attacked by so many
new like bots you know that are attacking
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websites that have causing our serve to
clog up. And also just my personal
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pages, like my Facebook pages,
my are online pages, all sorts of
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I mean, there's a tax by
so many some of them are obvious,
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right, but just so many like
fake comments and and just fake noise just
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everywhere, and it's it's already ridiculous. And and I'm and and it's ridiculous,
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and it's just me. It's it's
like, you know, I know
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that that meta is is trying to
develop things that detect it, so like
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it's ridiculous. But that's with somebody
actively putting money into trying to prevent it.
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It's it's still ridiculous. So I'm
just concerned about how it's gonna reach
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out and hit the theme parks and
that if no, if nobody is focusing
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on this, what it's gonna what
it's going to do. I mean,
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taking control of the my Disney Experience
app, being able to hack food orders,
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you know, being able to interfere
with the face scanning and people being
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I mean, it is like,
that's my rant. Anyway, I'm sorry,
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I have nothing positive to say.
No, that's I think that's I
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think that's fine. Well, I
mean, let's just I mean, it's
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clearly it's clearly a significant challenge because
it is now right now, you know,
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we've just just recently we saw the
report that the doomsday clock is at
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ninety seconds to midnight right now to
the end of the planet. And AI
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is now one of the key factors
in either accelerating or slowing down that that
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ticking clock as to how much longer
the planet is going to exist. And
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in fact, the debate right now
that I've seen in a couple of different
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articles is which is which is more
of a detrimental factor, climate change or
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AI. And and I think that's
I think that in and of itself says
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says more than enough. But you
know, it's it's interesting to me,
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and I think we all need to
be aware of it. But you know,
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to your point, Philip, it's
developing so quickly that it's almost it's
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almost like it's almost like trying to
trying to get a sip of water from
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a fire hydrant. It's it's coming
so quickly. I'm not sure how much
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we we have to control about it. We absolutely have to be aware of
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it. I mean, you know, obviously, at this point in time,
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when this is being recorded, the
whole, the whole, inappropriate AI
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generated photos of Taylor Swift, I
mean, that's that's not that's so minuscule
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in comparison to what this could do, you know, to your point,
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it can. It could pretty much
conceivably take over any anything that is is
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computer affiliated, which by the way, is everything. So to me,
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what it suggests is we need to
continue to have parallel backups for everything we
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need to have. You know,
we've all been working so hard to create
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this, this sky net world that
we need to make certain that we have
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backups for everything. And again,
sometimes those backups maybe something as stupid as
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some sort of documentation that is not
that is in the real world. You
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know. Again, technology swings back
and forth. This is just a huge
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swing, and it's a huge swing
that has actually helped helping to generate itself.
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So when I make the skynet reference, I'm not joking. I mean
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we are We are in a situation
where the only way to develop this was
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a statement that was made not too
long ago. The only way to develop
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some of the new AI is through
AI. So sure of this is not
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even being developed by human brains.
This is being developed by something that was
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developed by that was something was developed
by that was something that was developed by
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human brains. So I just think
we need to make we need to make
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certain that we keep an eye on
this situation, and as as parks and
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professionals, we recognize that you know, AI is not the almighty answer it
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is, but it is certainly something
that is there and we can't ignore it.
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We didn't mention in this one of
the biggest pieces, which is just
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that you know, I think most
people are just worried about it's impact on
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jobs. So I don't think you
should discuss I think you know, you
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should keep that in mind as well, But again I'm not We're not experts
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in that, and the same thing
we just said apply to that. We're
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not sure you know how that's going
to impact these parks, although we believe
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that the parks are mostly insulated because
you know, you like, there's so
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much the parks are a service industry, so it's a relatively insulated from that
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port. To me, the only
advice I'm going to put here at the
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end as a media professional is just
I think that your media and tech department
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departments need to be talking about this. You know, you need to be
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having a meeting about this every week, and you need to be thinking about
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how to move your audience over to
an owned and trusted platform that you maintain
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as a way to kind of have
a stopgap measure against the onslaught of misinformation,
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right, like you know, like
essentially, you need to be able
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to make sure that you can get
all of your cast and all of your
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you know, all of your your
team members and the public and as much
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people and be like, hey,
you know, these are our official sources
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of information. Here's officially where you
know, if you know, here,
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here's the drive with the official information
on it, all these things, like
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all that kind of stuff. Like
I think that's it's time for reminders and
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for training on all of those things
as to where where people can go to
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get the correct information, including your
team members, because it's not just going
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to be the guests that could be
on slided by misinformation. It could also
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be your own team members causing you
know, chaos in the you know,
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in your organization. So that that's
as a media entity, that's my thing,
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and you know, that's I'm gonna
leave it there. So, uh.
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Risk number six is a no China
recovery. And we have talked about
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this as well, you know,
significantly, But essentially it's just this report
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is laying out some of the complications
that the China's going to have in recovery,
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and including their zero COVID rebound policy, the real estate weaknesses, their
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low external demand, which would be
international demand for Chinese exports, specifically from
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US and Europe, will prove less
resilient than in twenty twenty three. Government
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economic response has been lacking. So
basically, there's a lot of factors in
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here's an excellent write up in here, But those factors we've already seen this.
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I've seen this at Gantum, and
so I think we already know feel
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this in the industry, and we've
talked about the dampening effect this is going
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to have on the tourism. But
you know, it's a great perspective on
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these things. I don't know what
else is say. I think we covered
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it last time in terms of just
watch it and you know, of course,
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keep it, keep a skeptical eye. You know, at least for
359
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me at Gantum, we're we've looked
at our policies to twenty twenty four and
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we've changed some of them around basically
to add a little bit more insurance withinternational
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with larger national orders like this or
anything that would potentially be sold to China
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or go into the just a little
extra insurance so that we're protected against you
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know, projects failing or things like
that happening. So that's what I would
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say. Well, and keep in
mind that when we actually started doing this
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this podcast, China was the it
was the place location where everything was.
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It was the place and everything was
growing in it, and so you know,
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it was growing and we can come
up with you know, we could
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probably talk to fifteen different experts and
come up with fifteen different reasons as to
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why we're now in this position where
the recovery is so slow, and it's
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basically, you know, to me, it's if I'm going to stupefy it
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down, like make it super dumb
so I can understand it. It's it's
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like a child who learned to run
really quickly and has tripped and now is
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afraid to get up. So we'll
see, we'll see how it all or
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is unable to get up one of
the other, so we'll see how it
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how it all pans out. Number
nine is El Nino is back. And
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this goes to what we've talked about
with some of the climate related problems with
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as Scott even mentioned earlier, I
mean, you know, most theme parks
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are outside, and so that puts
US at at an increased vulnerability when it
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comes to climate related issues. So
I'll read an excerpt here from the report.
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El Nino will also increase the chance
of natural disasters caused by extreme weather
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events such as fires, cyclones,
landslides, and floods. These occurrences will
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bring downside risks for homes, businesses, and infrastructure, and with important implications
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for a global insurance industry already reeling
from the consequences of climate change. And
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you know this is a four is
the weather pattern that repeats every four years
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for context, right, so we
know that you know it's going to be
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here, and we know that it's
going to be the most intense on record
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because the temperature is already increasing.
I will say, I think for the
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US we're relatively insulated from stuff like
this because we have the infrastructure and we
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have the capital, you know,
we have we kind of we have the
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ability a little bit to mitigate some
of this stuff. Or where I think
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you're going to see problems with this
is again in the country's outlined in the
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impact study here, But you know
there are countries that have been trying to
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get there tourism more off the ground
that I think this is going to really
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make it difficult for them to do
because again, the weather will impact the
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infrastructure outside and people going to places, and also the heat. If the
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heat was a problem last year in
Orlando, let me tell you, it's
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going to be a bigger problem this
year. That's exactly what I was going
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to say. I mean, we've
already talked about two different both both SeaWorld
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Parks Entertainment and and Disney in their
in their their profit statements, and you
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know when they were talking about their
their profit and loss for the year,
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blaming the weather as being an issue. Well, it's going to continue and
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be worse. I think that's something
we have to take into consideration that yes,
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it will impact us here in the
US and anything we can do to
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you know, if you're looking at
a SWAT analysis, this is one of
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those possible threats and we should be
prepared for them. Yes, And I
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was my suggest this one's gonna be
the same thing as the previous one.
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You need to be having like an
all hands kind of weekly to discuss like
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what is our contingency, what are
we going to do if it's too hot?
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For people. How are we gonna
make sure that people can still enjoy
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our parks with the heat, with
the cold, with the wind, damage
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to structures, that type of thing. And number ten, which also relates
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to us here, is they're calling
a risky business. But it's essentially what
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we talked about with the Disney versus
De Santists struggle. You know, the
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report says companies caught between conservatives and
progressives will nonetheless see their decision making autonomy
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limited and their cost of doing business
rise. Forced to navigate conflicting laws,
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regulations, and court rullings across red
and blue states, business leaders will find
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themselves in a lose lose environment of
higher policy uncertainty and regulatory risk. I
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think that sums it up pretty well. I was gonna say, I don't
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know how, I don't know how
much more clear that could be stated.
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I think that's that's spot on.
And you know, people will want to
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stick their heads in the ground and
say, no, it's just because the
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other side is stupid. The truth
of the matter is it's because both sides
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are being stupid, and this is
a perfect example of it. And I
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think it's really summed up that the
lose lose scenario is exactly what's going to
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end up happening, and I think
we just need to be aware of that
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and make decisions whenever we are creating
policy, or working to create policy,
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or supporting people who are creating policy, to keep this in mind. We
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are not trying to create a win
devastation scenario. We need to create win
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win scenarios to try to avoid lose
lose scenarios. And that's going to be
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really difficult, and it's going to
be a very slow turnaround, I think,
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but we'll see where it goes from
here. One thing I do know
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for certain, though, and that
is that we are out of time.
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It has been We've completed our thirty
minutes, and I am thrilled that you
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sat through yet another half hour with
us. So on behalf of Philipernandez with
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00:30:49.079 --> 00:30:55.079
GANDAM Lighting and the Hunted Attraction Network
and myself Scott Swinson with Scott Swinson Creative
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00:30:55.119 --> 00:30:59.519
Development. This is Green Tag Theme
Park in thirty and we will see you next week












