Why Abu Dhabi?

Why Disney Bringing is the Magic Kingdom to the Middle East After Decades of Denial

In 2016, Disney CEO Bob Iger sat on stage at an event hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations and recalled Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman practically begging him to build a Disney park in his kingdom. Mr. Iger’s answer was a hard no. Iger explained to the Crown Prince that wealth wasn’t the only thing required for Disney to plant its flag in a country’s soil; the company also had to consider culture and politics, and it was for those reasons that the Crown Prince’s request was spurned.

So what changed?

Everything. First, the regional situation has changed radically and rapidly. Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, tired of being second fiddle to Dubai, has been spending vast sums of money to turn its country into a global tourism hub. The small kingdom now boasts a Ferrari-themed park, a Warner Brothers indoor park, a radical new version of SeaWorld, and even a branch of the Louvre. The city attracted around 24 million tourists in 2023.

This article features exclusive thoughts from legendary Imagineer Eddie Sotto.

Second, Disney is under immense pressure to find new streams of revenue to shore up loses from their predictably unpredictable media divisions, a streaming service that while becoming more profitable every quarter, is still finding its sea legs, and a quickly disappearing linear TV business. The only consistently profitable division of the company is the Experiences division, and that’s where the company has been the most adventurous in finding new revenue streams such as Storyliving by Disney, the planned communities that are Disney-branded but not Disney built or owned.

So, enter The Miral Group, this humongous real estate developer, which operates most of the non-Disney attractions mentioned above, decided to make Disney an offer they couldn’t refuse. They would incur all the costs. They will not only pay for Imagineering to design the park but they will also build, own, and operate the resort in whole. Much like Snow White with her apple, Disney readily accepted.

Now, if you don’t know much about the operation of Disney Parks overseas, this may seem odd to you. However, this is actually the exact arrangement that gave us Tokyo Disneyland, the first ever international Disney resort. It’s worked out wonderfully in Japan, with visitors enjoying what is said to be the highest caliber Disney Resort in the world. Who’s to say how it work out here. If the agreement is the similar to the deal Disney inked in Japan it will probably go great, if not, and if the Miral Group is allowed to build the project to the standard of their other properties, it will be a substandard Disney Park, not quite opening-day Disney’s California Adventure or Walt Disney Studios Park level, but still not what veteran Disney guests expect.

Mr. Iger has indicated that this park in addition to being the “most technologically advanced theme park” ever built will be first Disney “castle park” to feature a ‘truly modern’ castle, which in concept art appears to made curved, reflective glass.

“We haven’t decided everything that will go into it, but we do know it will be anchored by a castle. And again — the modernization that is Abu Dhabi — the castle will be the first real modern castle that we built,” Mr. Iger told Good Morning America. “You start thinking about what is possible, actually envisioning a castle rising up in this case from the sand and also being on the water.”

Former Imagineer Eddie Sotto, who is the founder and owner of SottoStudios, a leading LA-based experiential design firm, told MagicalMedia+, “Herb Ryman [one of Walt Disney’s original Imagineers] was always interested and proposed several times a castle inside of a crystal for EuroDisney, and I was actually excited to see an image that reminded me of that in the concept art.”