From orlandosentinel.com:

Question: You come to Universal after stints at Walt Disney World and Royal Caribbean. Are there similarities between marketing cruises and theme-park vacations?

Answer: There are a lot of similarities. At the end of the day, we’re all providing great vacation experiences to a broad audience. Each of them has their own unique benefits and products, and their marketing and sales efforts reflect the personality of those products.

Q: What strategic differences have to be pursued to market and sell Universal Orlando during hard times versus good times?

A: The fundamentals remain the same: It’s really about knowing your audience, understanding your market and monitoring their reactions as you put your marketing programs in place, and then being adaptable and flexible to change your programs based on their response. We have a long history of providing a great value to our guest, and we certainly continue to do that through these times.

Q: A couple places around town see this as a time to add sales force. Is that something you’ll be doing as we move into harder times, to increase marketing and sales efforts?A: Again, we’ll go back and monitor and measure what’s working and perhaps shift our focus to those things that are working for us. I wouldn’t want to predict what those outcomes are.

Q: The Halloween Horror Nights Bloody Mary campaign drew some backlash from people who thought it was too gruesome. How do you respond to that?

A: We haven’t made any changes in our advertising. Obviously, the intent was to show the creative intent of the event and allow people to understand what the event is all about. It’s very consistent with what we have done in the past, and we will continue to monitor and listen to guest feedback as we do with all of our programs, and we’ll take that into consideration.

Q: What was the last great vacation you took?

A: There are so many to choose from. The last vacation I took was actually here, earlier this summer, and we enjoyed all the attractions. I have a 6-year-old, so we went to all the attractions at Islands of Adventure and Universal Studios and stayed at the Portofino Bay Hotel and had a great time.

Q: What sold you on this destination?

A: Probably 25 years of having lived here and also enjoying all there is too see and do here, and how it’s always changing as well. That’s the wonderful part of Orlando — there’s always something new to explore. It’s always fresh.

Q: I’ve seen rock-show-style handbills that advertise the upcoming Hollywood Rip Ride Roller Coaster. What kind of feedback are you getting?

A: We’ve gotten very positive feedback on the creative concept and on the execution of it as we’ve been discussing it. We’re particularly excited as we look at really breaking through and providing an innovative new roller coaster for our guests.

Q: We’re still 18 months or so out from the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. What are you doing at this point to try to market that?

A: We’re focused right now on the current products that we’re marketing, whether it’s Halloween Horror Nights, our upcoming holiday celebration, the Mardi Gras, or the Hollywood Rip Ride Rocket launch, so that’s what we’re focused on right now.

Q: So you’re not focusing on Wizarding World?

A: Not so much.

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