Disney’s theme park division has a new leader for the first time in six years, following major shifts in The Walt Disney Company’s org chart. The new chairman brings a deep hospitality background and focus on delivering a high-quality guest experience.
The newly installed executive has ambitious plans for the future of Disney vacations. We heard directly from him about his focuses in leadership during a business update. He shared his perspective on his approach to bringing hospitality into every aspect of the Disney theme park experience. Mickey Visit brings you the latest Disney news and planning resources, including the list of artists and celebrities being named Disney Legends this year and future attractions coming to Disneyland Resort.
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How Disneyland Changed Its Approach to Hospitality
Thomas Mazloum brought a renewed focus on guest hospitality when he became President of Disneyland Resort in 2025. Before that role, he was head of Disney Signature Experiences, which oversees Disney Cruise Line and Adventures By Disney, and before that led the Walt Disney World Resort Hotels during their reopening from the pandemic closure. Importantly, he also brings a deep sense of hospitality from training in Europe and time running Crystal Cruises, an ultra-luxury cruise line featuring smaller ships with only 600-750 guests.
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His wide breadth of experience means that he has a perspective on serving all buckets of guests from annual pass holders to once-in-a-lifetime visitors to ultra-luxury big spenders.
Now, Mazloum has been promoted to Chairman of Disney Experiences, taking over for Josh D’Amaro, who recently replaced Bob Iger as CEO of The Walt Disney Company. In turn, Jill Estorino replaced Mazloum as President of Disneyland Resort, transitioning from her previous role of President of Disney Parks International.
At Disneyland, Mazloum implemented a set of guiding principles for the California destination that still apply now that he runs all Disney theme parks and cruise ships globally. We anticipate that he’ll bring these same focuses to the broader Disney Experiences business.
Mickey Visit was recently one of a dozen or so media outlets that attended a business update at Disneyland Resort with Mazloum. During that presentation, he shared thoughts on his approach to leadership when he stepped into the role at Disneyland. Previously, we covered other aspects of this conversation, including details on park-hopping changes and park reservations, the choice to delay a permanent ride closure, changes considered for security at Disneyland, plans to attract more young families, and the inside story of the Disneyland monorail that was stuck.
Mazloum’s presentation was moderated by a member of his Disneyland Resort executive team. She expressed that his specific, simple principles have helped the Disneyland executive team focus on where improvements are required and where to tune out the noise.
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I already shared the three specific focuses from Mazloum’s arrival at Disneyland in our look at sweeping cast member changes at Disneyland. Those changes represent some of the work that he has focused on during his year at Disneyland:
- Who is your customer today, and are they happy? Do they plan to come back?
- How are we pulling in new audiences?
- Where do we hire cast members? How do we train them? How do we support them? Who are the leaders of the cast members?
I appreciated his clear-eyed approach to running Disneyland and bringing in new customers. He spoke about how every business is in some ways a leaky bucket. There are always some amount of people, even if very small, spilling out of the ecosystem and so you constantly need to be adding in new people and growing your audience to sustain the business into the future. He said that the strong discounting for California residents this spring and kids this summer was part of this focus on making sure that Disneyland was growing audience to create ongoing future visitors. Similarly, he launched an Anaheim ticket offer last summer because he felt it was important that residents of the city that is home to Disneyland have a strong connection to the resort.
On the cast members, Mazloum has said that while the Disney theme parks have their great set of rides and experiences, it is the cast members who breathe life into those experiences and create the memorable experiences for guests. He said that this importance dates back to Walt Disney and referenced a favorite quote from Walt: “You can design and create, and build the most wonderful place in the world. But it takes people to make the dream a reality.”
Coming out of the pandemic, Disneyland had to dramatically staff up with many new people who had never worked for Disney or even been in a Disney theme park. The focus during the hiring was the health and safety reopening procedures. Under Mazloum, Disneyland has emphasized retraining efforts to bring hospitality and the Disney guest experience back to the center in training sessions for both new employees and those hired during reopening.
Now that Mazloum is in his new role, we can expect him to approach the overall Disney Experiences business with this same perspective.
How All Disney Theme Parks Will Change in the Future
During his presentation, Mazloum said the most important part of a Disney experience is how a guest feels throughout their day. It’s why he was so focused on improving the guest experience and hospitality delivered by cast members at Disneyland. This hit on the first pillar of his focuses above.
In addition to the three pillars listed above, Mazloum spoke generally about his leadership style. This feels informative for how he will approach the Disney Experiences business as he steps into this elevated role. He shared that his background is steeped in hospitality and guest services. The principles he shared go all the way back to his time receiving hospitality training in Europe.
Quality – Mazloum said Disney’s job is to give people a quality experience, and they will come back. He expressed how this philosophy aligns with something Walt Disney said:
“Whatever you do, do it well. Do it so well that when people see you do it, they will want to come back and see you do it again, and they will want to bring others and show them how well you do what you do.”
Simplicity – Mazloum said that the world is complicated and that he is a big believer in keeping things simple. Whether through simplifying how guests navigate their experience or making it easier for cast members to do the right thing instead of the wrong thing, simplicity should be a decision-driver.
He pointed to an Albert Einstein quote that he shares frequently with his leadership team: “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”
During his time at Disneyland, he looked at the various park policies for ways to improve them and elevate the guest experience. During our conversation, he discussed his deep look into park reservations which eventually led to the announcement of the removal of the park hopping rule and a confirmation that they are working on improving entrance security at Disneyland.
While there is still plenty of complexity in the Disney experience and technology feels ever-present, having this perspective while judging new offerings or plans for the theme parks should at least help to prevent even more policy and technology bloat in the guest experience.
Trust – Mazloum acknowledged that trust takes a long time to earn, but is easy to lose. He said that trust needs to be in every decision that Disney makes. His leaders must think through how decisions will impact the way guests, cast members, and business partners trust Disney, as they won’t always get a second chance at trust.
This is a key part of his continued focus on improving the cast member experience because this translates so directly to the experience of all theme park guests as well.
Then, Mazloum discussed the balance of evolving Disneyland to keep growing and reaching more people to remain relevant, while also deeply respecting the legacy and heritage that make the place special. He said his job is to ensure Disneyland can thrive in the next 70 years the way it has in the past 70 years.
Mazloum said that Disneyland isn’t in the entertainment industry, but the memory-making industry. It needs to stay at the forefront of delighting millions of people every single year and to keep adding guests every year.
Finally, he spoke about his goals to harmonize guest feedback to deliver the best possible product for all guests. He called out how different a day at Disneyland is for Magic Key annual pass holders compared to that of a first-time guest.
Regardless of how familiar a guest is with the Disney product, Disney should be able to synthesize feedback to create a more positive experience for everyone. This goal of “harmonizing”, his word, the different guest experiences at the theme parks will broadly apply to all of his work across the portfolio of destinations. There are so many different constituents who interact with a Disney theme park and a limited amount of theme park space to serve those different constituents. How do you create products and offerings to serve these groups in the best way possible that causes them to want to return?
From the once-in-a-lifetime trip to the deeply passionate fandom, understanding how to utilize the parks and cruise ships to serve these different groups is both difficult and critical.
What’s Next for Disney Theme Parks
Last week I was with Thomas Mazloum at the newly relaunched Disney Adventure World theme park after he was promoted to parks chairman. I asked if these principles that he shared in the context of Disneyland would be applied to all of the Disney Experiences division. Broadly, he said that the way he approached Disneyland will be a similar way he’ll look across the entire portfolio. He listed some of the key first principles of quality, simplicity, and trust as being the way that he approaches every business he manages.
Looking ahead, I expect Mazloum to approach the broader Disney theme park business around the world with the same eye toward delivering a simplified experience. To me, that means delivering the best quality experience for the largest number of people while continuing to grow attendance. At times those goals can be at odds with Disney’s aim to keep increasing division profits, which are required to continue the massive theme park investment. With that said, I appreciate that Mazloum has acknowledged the difficult balance of delivering results in each area and the key areas that he will continue to watch while working on this.
There is plenty of opportunity to implement these ambitions as Disney continues a period of tremendous expansion globally. This includes $60 billion of investment over 10 years, extending to new lands at Walt Disney World in Florida, like Villains Land, pictured above under construction at Magic Kingdom, as well as new attractions at Disneyland Resort in California and multiple new cruise ships.
What do you think of Thomas Mazloum’s Disney priorities? Is there anything that you would want to say to the new theme park leader?
We look forward to continuing to bring you updates on all these exciting plans in the months and years to come right here on Mickey Visit.
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