Theme_Park_Insider
02-26-2009, 08:29 PM
By Robert Niles: Scott Joseph reported yesterday that Dieter Hannig has taken the Disney management buy-out (http://www.scottjosephorlando.com/food_drink_other_stuff/2009/02/dieter-hannig-leaving-walt-disney-world-co.html) and is leaving Walt Disney World. If you're not familiar with the name, he's the person in charge of dining at the Walt Disney World Resort. (Vice President of the Food and Beverage division was the official title.) He came to Orlando from Disneyland Paris in 1988 and changed operations in Central Florida to give individual chefs greater autonomy over their restaurants.
The Orlando Sentinel chased the story today. Here is its version (http://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/orl-bk-disney-world-buyout-022609,0,3251759.story).
Hannig, 59, is moving with his wife to Panama, where they will be opening an organic food and yoga resort. Something that off the "normal" wall would seem to beg for a snarky comment... if it weren't such a cool-sounding idea. Hope he has a great time. Anyone who tries to elevate the food experience at theme parks deserves a special commendation from fans, in my book.
As for other passages, I wanted to take a couple grafs of your reading time to note the closing of the Rocky Mountain News in Denver. As some of you might know, I used to be the editor of the Rocky's website. In fact, Theme Park Insider was born while I worked at the Rocky. Thanks to a bone-headed management policy at the time, we were not allowed to use Rocky staff writers to create original content for the website when I worked there. So, to get that content, I had the then-novel idea of conning asking readers to contribute content to the site. We started with reader reviews for restaurants and movies, then added birth and wedding announcements, eventually moving on to reader votes and comments on the paper's editorials.
While I was building these interactive features for the site, I became intrigued by the idea of a publication that was built on nothing but reader-contributed content. So, in my own time at home and on my personal computer, I built a new Web application to allow people to rate and review individual attractions at Disney World and Disneyland, the first site online where people could do that. Of course, that application grew into Theme Park Insider.
My former co-workers at the Rocky have done great work over the years, and deserved better than the bad strategic decisions that left them sitting ducks in a deteriorating economy. If you live near Denver, pick up the last copy of the Rocky tomorrow, will ya? And if you're near the 16th Street Mall tomorrow afternoon, and see a bunch of journalists in a bar, buy one of 'em a drink and say 'thanks.' They've earned it.
More... (http://www.themeparkinsider.com/flume/200902/1077/)
The Orlando Sentinel chased the story today. Here is its version (http://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/orl-bk-disney-world-buyout-022609,0,3251759.story).
Hannig, 59, is moving with his wife to Panama, where they will be opening an organic food and yoga resort. Something that off the "normal" wall would seem to beg for a snarky comment... if it weren't such a cool-sounding idea. Hope he has a great time. Anyone who tries to elevate the food experience at theme parks deserves a special commendation from fans, in my book.
As for other passages, I wanted to take a couple grafs of your reading time to note the closing of the Rocky Mountain News in Denver. As some of you might know, I used to be the editor of the Rocky's website. In fact, Theme Park Insider was born while I worked at the Rocky. Thanks to a bone-headed management policy at the time, we were not allowed to use Rocky staff writers to create original content for the website when I worked there. So, to get that content, I had the then-novel idea of conning asking readers to contribute content to the site. We started with reader reviews for restaurants and movies, then added birth and wedding announcements, eventually moving on to reader votes and comments on the paper's editorials.
While I was building these interactive features for the site, I became intrigued by the idea of a publication that was built on nothing but reader-contributed content. So, in my own time at home and on my personal computer, I built a new Web application to allow people to rate and review individual attractions at Disney World and Disneyland, the first site online where people could do that. Of course, that application grew into Theme Park Insider.
My former co-workers at the Rocky have done great work over the years, and deserved better than the bad strategic decisions that left them sitting ducks in a deteriorating economy. If you live near Denver, pick up the last copy of the Rocky tomorrow, will ya? And if you're near the 16th Street Mall tomorrow afternoon, and see a bunch of journalists in a bar, buy one of 'em a drink and say 'thanks.' They've earned it.
More... (http://www.themeparkinsider.com/flume/200902/1077/)