(March 17) Disney stocks soared, after Disney CEO Bob Chapek says Disneyland to reopen on April 30.
California's twoDisneytheme parks will reopen on April 30, CEO Bob Chapek said on CNBC's "Squawk Alley" Wednesday.
All theme parks in California have been closed due to Covid-related restrictions for the past year. While guidelines in other states, like Florida, allowed parks to reopen with limited capacity, California's rules have kept theme parks big and small shuttered.
However, new state guidance permits amusement parks to reopen beginning April 1 with 15% to 35% capacity depending on the prevalence of the virus in the community. Masks and other health precautions will be required.
California is reporting just under 2,900 new Covid-19 cases per day, based on a weekly average, a near 32% decline compared with a week ago, according to a CNBC analysis of data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. The rate of new Covid cases has been on the decline as more people have been getting vaccinated. With ramp ups in supply and acces, on average about 2.4 million people are getting vaccinated daily in the U.S.
Orange County, where Disneyland and California Adventure are located, are seeing four new cases a day per 100,000 residents. At its peak, the county saw 118 new cases a day per 100,000 people back in mid-January.
The shutdown last year led Disney tolay off tens of thousands of workers and slashed an important source of revenue for the media company. The parks, experiences and consumer products segment accounted for 37% of the company's $69.6 billion in total revenue in 2019, or around $26.2 billion.
A year later, revenue shrunk to $16.5 billion, or around 25% of the company's $65.4 billion in total revenue.
During the company's fiscal first-quarter earnings call, Chief Financial Officer Christine McCarthy said that for the parks that have been open during the pandemic, the company was able to make a profit from the guests who visited despite reduced capacity levels.
As parks expand capacity and reopen, there will be some level of social distancing and mask wearing for the rest of the year.