Trump Policies and Theme Parks: Labor, Tariffs, Drones, and Ride Safety

Philip Hernandez (00:00.702)
Well, today we're gonna talk all about the Trump administration's policies and what they mean for you. This is green tag theme park in 30 and I'm joined as always by my cohost Scott Swenson of Scott Swenson and Create Development who is here with us sitting upright.

Scott (00:15.618)
Yes, which is a good thing. Yeah, it's a good thing. And for those of you who have asked, yes, my back is much better. Thank you. One thing I would like to clarify, though, before we get too far into the show, when Philip says you, he means you as a member of this industry. We are here to discuss the issues without diving into tirades, rants, even though both of us could and would probably feel better after we did.

our goal in this particular show is to talk through things in a realistic, fact-based, but somewhat logical manner in what I will say on the surface seems like a very illogical time. So I want to make sure that

those of you who already, mean, most of you who are listeners and have been listeners for a while know where Philip and I stand, both politically and on policies, et cetera, et cetera, et And we don't always agree, but we usually do. You know that we have a tendency to lean liberal on certain areas, and even that is various shades of gray, even between Philip and I. But.

I just want to make sure that we are going to try to discuss these to the best of our ability in a way that is fair and fact-based and open. And of course we will share our opinions because that's what our show is about. but I just, don't want people to all of a sudden go, oh, crud, they're going to Trump bash and just turn it off because that is not our intent. It may be the outcome, but it is not our intent.

Philip Hernandez (01:53.414)
Yeah, and I think the way that we're going to go about this is actually looking at what IAPA released recently, their public affairs department released a whole, a very long update where they kind of broke down each of the genres of policies, you know, kind of categorize them, you know, safety policy, drone policy, you know, you can look at that. And then they gave their, the associations take on it and what the association was going to advocate for.

And I think that was a really good starting point to start the discussion because already we're kind of just looking at just the stance that IAPA's app came for. So I'm going to be reading excerpts of their report. We're not going to read all of it. You can access it on their website. It's quite lengthy, I'm only... Yep.

Scott (02:38.348)
And please do, by the way. Please do. Take advantage of this. IAPA does, you've heard, again, transparency. You know that I am a very strong supporter of IAPA as a supporter for our industry. So take advantage of this. This is one of those opportunities where you can get some advice that's not coming from, well, let me put it this way, that's biased based on what your industry is.

Philip Hernandez (03:02.452)
Yes.

Scott (03:02.904)
So it's how it's going to impact you as a member of the attractions industry. So take full advantage.

Philip Hernandez (03:07.444)
Yeah, this is an excellent resource, to Scott's point, because it does, that's exactly right. It says like, you know, this is a group of people, you know, the IAPA whole looks together and they are looking to say, you know, politics aside, what is the best policy, individual policy for our association? And you'll notice in here that it definitely, take stuff from each side, you know, like they care about having workers, but they also want to keep the corporate tax cuts, for example.

So you have, know, they're really, they're mishmashing a bunch of different stances together. So it's not, it's definitely not one side or the other. So that's why we're taking this as our starting point. So, so I trimmed it down even further into things that are only, I would guess I would say like hot button topics or topics that have been core to themes that we have been discussing on the show previously. So we, of course the most important one we're gonna start off with is the immigration policy and

IAAPA did a good job of summarizing the importance of it, which is, quote, studies consistently show that the lack of available workers in the US is a critical factor for the economy's future, with the workforce crisis expected to reach its peak by 2030. This concern is further emphasized by IAAPA's quarterly outlook survey, which identifies staffing shortages as the top challenge facing the industry. Unfortunately, the topics of immigration reform and border security have become intertwined and remain highly divisive. As a result, there are growing concerns

that new immigration policies aimed at securing the border could unintentionally harm the workforce, exacerbating labor shortages, driving up wages, disrupting key sectors like ours and slowing economic growth, especially since much of the recent job growth has been fueled by lawful immigration. It is the supply of lawful immigrant workers, guest workers and or exchange program workers. If that is inadvertently disrupted, how will the transits industry adequately staff to meet guests expectations and grow? And then just leave it as an open question.

Looking forward, 16 states have introduced or enacted new laws and regulations to modernize how employers can schedule work for 16 and 17 year olds. This signals a potentially favorable shift in labor policy that may be able to expand upon this with a reasonable and responsible manner. So the key takeaways there is the J-1 visa program remains active but is under scrutiny. 33 % of operators report critical staffing concerns. That was the number they were referencing in their.

Philip Hernandez (05:32.032)
report that they referenced at Luxembourg, which we've talked about. We also talked about this labor change in laws on a previous episode as well in those 16 states and how, you know, how attractions are poised to take advantage of this to have them come in here. So all this brings up the question, can or should, you know, youth employment law changes offset visa restrictions? You know, can they? Is there enough?

to fill that, should they even do that? And then what would be the impact? You know, if, the staffing does get, if, these visa programs are altered or whatnot, how is that going to impact the attractions? And I think also, especially not just the theme parks and the things we think of, but also you think of agritourism as well and places that are more in farming spaces and whatnot. I just gave a summary, Scott, you tell me.

Scott (06:28.202)
Well, I wish so I wish I were more of an expert on this than I really am But I will say based on based on my experience in the industry This is not the best time for our industry to start putting up roadblocks to bring in every possible Resource for lawful employment

This is a very bad time because we are finally, finally starting to completely recover from COVID, from the shutdowns and the slowdowns, et cetera. Certainly where I'm based in Florida, we've got new parks popping up all over the place and we're starting to get more and more new parks popping up outside of the US, which is going to pull workers

And you're going to say, no, it's not going to pull work. Go look at the senior staff in any theme park, especially one that is a brand that started in the US. And look how many of them come, how many of their upper executives come from the United States. And how many of those executives actually started in frontline positions and work their way up. So take a look at that. if you don't. Right.

Philip Hernandez (07:48.34)
Yeah, mean, theme parks are an American export, basically.

Scott (07:51.52)
Right. if it's not going to, you if you don't think it's going to those parks, the new parks, the expansion of existing parks, if you don't think that's going to impact us from a labor standpoint, you are mistaken. The. I think. I think one of the things that we have to take into consideration here is not every immigrant is an illegal immigrant. We have to dispel that rumor right off the bat.

Philip Hernandez (08:16.435)
Yes. And I like how they, they emphasized in multiple places, lawful immigration. So it sounds like IAPA is trying to make this line and say, we are in favor of lawful immigration and especially the J-1 visa program, which is all people, they're documented and they're here to work specifically and they're under guidelines and that's what we need. And I think that's a really good line is to say we are here for people who do the paperwork correctly and are here to come in and help.

with our attractions because we need that. And it sounds like they're also, it's like a two-pronged approach. One, they're trying to clarify we're here for the lawful immigration. We're also here for considering expanding the, like you said, expanding the potential workforce into younger people.

Scott (08:59.566)
Right, right. And I'll be honest, I have at this point in my life, I have no opposition to expanding to 16 year olds. I have no opposition at all. The only challenge in the US in doing that is litigation. If somebody has to be held responsible in a court of law, it gets tricky if they're under the age of 18. As long as we can figure that one out. I know more than enough 16 and 17 year olds who could actually do jobs better than 32 year olds.

And what's going to end up happening is I can promise you that the moment these states expand and say, yes, we're going to make a more robust younger workforce in 16 and 17 year olds, then 30 and 40 year olds who can't get work are going to blame them as well. What I'm seeing happen, and I'm seeing this happen more in a anecdotal way that I'm viewing, but

more and more people are concerned about immigrants or what they refer to as DEI hires, which is like fingernails on a chalkboard to me, because that just proves you don't know what DEI is.

But they're blaming somebody else, either someone whose skin is a different color, someone who's a different age, someone who loves somebody of the same sex, someone who does not identify as the gender they were identified with at birth. They want to blame somebody for them not having a job. And so they're just going to try to get rid of all that competition so that these people can come in and get jobs. To me, that's

is what they're saying a DEI hire is. What they're doing is they're eliminating all the competition so that they don't hire the person with the highest qualification, which by the way is what DEI is all about. But they're hiring someone just because of the color of their skin and they bitch loud, I'm sorry, they complain loud enough, we're not on unhinged yet. They complain loud enough.

Scott (11:04.268)
to eliminate the competition. you know, we talk about slippery slopes here and there. This is a very slippery slope. And I can't see, I'm going to stop talking about, stop talking to the frontline people and start talking to the senior leadership. Where are you going to get people to run your park? If people are afraid to come to this country to get work.

Philip Hernandez (11:22.784)
Yeah.

Scott (11:26.818)
Because let's face it, that's how the United States grew. People came here to get work. You've heard the American Dream and all that stuff from the past. If we start making it less and less appealing or even possible for people to legally and lawfully come here to work, how are you going to staff your parks? So please keep that in mind as you move forward with the way that you vote, with the way that you share your opinions.

And you can say, we're going to bring in as much technology as we possibly can. We're in the service industry, Technology does not replace people in the service industry. Technology can replace people in car building, but not in relationship building in a theme park.

Philip Hernandez (12:04.49)
Yeah.

Yeah. Well, and.

Philip Hernandez (12:16.16)
That's another topic we've talked a lot about that. I think the answer is to what you were just sending an extension of what you were just saying. The answer is going to have to be everything because it's, you should be working on technology and also working on thinking about expanding your potential pool, know, making, advocating for younger workers and for older workers. Like Scott has said before, you know, don't, don't just think of one way, like not just the 16 year olds, but also the retired folks that are in that are

You know, think of both ends and then also think of technology and also continue to advocate for the visa programs. Like all three things will be needed, I think, to provide enough.

Scott (12:55.278)
Exactly. And I just, because I brought it up, I just have to take a short, really short period of time. I promise I won't rant on this. But I just want to clarify when you're talking about diversity, equity, inclusion, and I like to add accessibility in there as well. When you're talking about this, one of the things that has been brought to my attention a couple of times in the past week is people think that DEI is a department or a program.

It's not. This is not some of the programs that have been tried in the past in order to make the workforce more diverse. This is a concept. This is a practice.

And it is a practice that has been proven over and over and over again that when you include diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility as a corporate member or an owner of a company, your company improves, not because of the optics, but because you get a broader spectrum of points of view, which will then allow you to expand your audience, which then translates into money. So if you are foolish enough to wash away DEI,

you're really cutting off your nose to spite your face. including diversity and equity and accessibility into your hiring practices is good for you as a company. And it's been proven in studies over and over and over again. please don't lessen your, here's my tie back to what we were talking about, don't lessen your employment pool.

by not trying to seek employment from people that don't look like you.

Philip Hernandez (14:41.972)
Yep. That's great. I like that tie back. mean, basically that's exactly it where we need more people and we're all going to continue to need more and more people. And even when you work technology and there's going to be a new thing, you know, and it's going to, you know, it's going to be on both ends, like still having. Yeah, I don't, we can do a whole another episode on this, but, basically we need more people and Ioppa is trying to walk the line between clarifying that, therefore these particular programs.

that lead to more people being able to work at the parks and attractions because that's what we need. We need more people. Epic Universe opening, 2,000 hires, where are they going to come from? All this stuff, Disneyland, Disneyland Forward.

Scott (15:23.086)
And the rumblings I'm hearing, they're not, Epic's not even sure where all their people are coming from.

Philip Hernandez (15:27.296)
Yeah, yeah, this is a problem. anyway, so that's that one. The next item, I've kind of sorted these, I think, and most important, I put tariffs as the next one, even though I'll read what I opposite and they didn't say much about the tariffs. They said, and I'm quoting here, it is unclear whether President Trump intends to impose new tariffs or if he's using the threat as a negotiation tactic in a larger trade deal, working with our partners at the National Association of Manufacturers,

We are closely monitoring the situation as new tariffs on metals or other key materials could have a substantial impact on our members." That's an understatement if I have ever read one. But I think it's interesting that IOP is actually not taking a firmer position. I'm not sure if that reflects their uncertainty about the direction. Like they said, like we're not clear. Or if it's just they don't want to alienate people by taking like

whatever, mean, they're taking like a neutral thing, but they're still highlighting that this is, it's important, which we have talked about before. It's, you know, at my company, am every day, I am like looking for news about this, we're running scenario planning, you know, if this happens, then this, you know, we're making a whole map of possible, what could happen if any number of things happen. we're, mean, it's a lot of, we are really trying to prepare for this. So it's a big deal.

And to me, think these two things could potentially create a pretty big storm where...

And here's the thing, they might create a storm even if no policy actually happens. And let me explain this. So as Scott kind of alluded to, right, even if you have people, if people start, don't, if people start to decide they don't want to even consider coming to the US, then even if the J-1 visa program is still a thing, you get less people, right? And the same thing. if states can't, know, whatever, they don't change the laws and we don't get these J-1 visas,

Philip Hernandez (17:33.844)
You're looking at a workforce reduction. And even if there are no tariff policies, right now what we've been seeing in my industry is you're seeing people that are trying to pre-purchase components or trying to move components around. so we see two big things that I'm dealing with personally. One is components are out of stock because people, other industries are taking them just in case. And two, actually people are raising prices already.

And so, so, so like, even if there's no policy, we could have a perfect storm where it becomes more difficult to build something and it becomes more difficult to staff it, which means that it's a combination of tariffs and workforce restrictions, which will increase the development costs while reducing the operational capability. So it could force opera operators to scale back their expansion plans or to raise prices, right? Which could impact the guest experience because

You look at all the things that we're trying to build right now, if those component prices go up or whatever. So my point on all this is like, think IAPA has, again, a very good stance where they are just walking the middle line. Where they're saying, if this were to happen, it would be bad, but we're not sure it's gonna happen yet. Which is, that's a perfect summary of the situation. I'm just saying it may not matter because just the talk about it.

is in my world, it's causing prices to go up. Like we had to raise prices already because of just the talk that there could be potential tariffs going out there. And then the same thing, we are already seeing people not skilled workers less inclined to come to the US because of all the words about it. So these two things could come together to just create a pretty big problem for attractions. Okay, thank you.

Scott (19:24.898)
Yeah, let me start at kind of the point that you were making at the end there, which is with components and elements just because of the potential of or the talk of, it's what I call the toilet paper and hurricane season theory. Here in Florida, when there is a hurricane spotted on the other side of the Gulf of Mexico,

Philip Hernandez (19:41.716)
Yep, exactly.

Scott (19:51.436)
the you can go to the store later that day and they have no toilet paper and it's twice the price we jokingly in our household say god please news media don't say prices could go up because the moment they say they could go up

retailers look at it and go, well, we can raise prices. They already said it's going to go up. They've already explained it. starting there, I think you're absolutely right. think just this discussion is dangerous. think just throwing these things out there is detrimental to the overall well-being of businesses, especially attraction industry businesses in the United States. And I also agree with you. think why isn't IAPA taking a firmer position?

Philip Hernandez (20:12.062)
Yeah, exactly.

Scott (20:36.718)
I think the simplest answer is the waters are so muddy right now and have been intentionally muddied. So we really don't know what to believe, what to follow, what to latch onto. And my concern is that as we are trying to figure that out, the people who are continuing to put mud into the waters and murky murky things up.

are watching it as well and they're going to look and see, wait, where is everybody's focus right now? And they'll do something else that's swirling in the water. They'll all of a sudden shift their attention to something else that's swirling in the water, pass it and we'll never know.

So we're in a very difficult time right now when it comes to keeping track of everything. I can't even in good conscience say that those politicians or those pundits or those lobbyists that I believe in and support, I can't necessarily, I even fact check them because I'm like, don't want to go, I don't want to.

One of my favorite phrases for where we are right now in the world is, when you are confronted by an enemy, the worst thing that can happen is that you become them. So I'm trying desperately not to do that. And I want to make certain that the information that I am sharing and putting out there has been vetted, has been discussed. And I think that IAPA is doing the same thing. And I think that's why they haven't made a firmer stand on this, why they haven't gone out and

said, knock it off, because nothing has really been done. You Philip and I said this just before we started recording the show. There's a lot of stuff, there's a lot of executive orders that have been signed, there's a lot of, you know, threats that have been made, there's been a couple of, you know, ICE appearances at schools, at other locations already, but it hasn't, the ship hasn't completely sailed yet.

Scott (22:41.074)
And it's in that time that really both sides or all sides, I wouldn't even say both sides, it's not just a two-sided issue. All sides have the opportunity to get a foothold. So stay aware, remain aware, and vet your information. And that way you won't be caught off guard.

Philip Hernandez (22:59.71)
Yeah. next up ride safety. This one's much, actually this one's much more straightforward. So Ioppa basically oppose, oppose this federal regulation of oversight of amusement ride safety. And they support the state level regulation and oversight. we talk, we, we talked about this, I think quite extensively, when, there was a previous talk about, federal oversight on it, but

IAAPA did include it in here because it was something that had been brought up in a past conference and they just wanted to, I think, reiterate their stance, which is that, you know, it should be up to the states. I think we talked about this a little bit last time, but, you know, I think the arguments, the argument on either side is that, you know, IAAPA is saying it should be up to the states because there already is a robust state level regulation oversight system in place and we don't need to like mess with it.

But on the other side, they're saying, you know, our state regulations truly enough because there is, there might be inconsistency because of, of there's, there's a few states that are even missing any regulations. So there might be a consistency. And then of course that that's that side's also saying that a national oversight would improve data collection and standardization. Scott and I already talked about this previously. think Scott and I landed on the IAPA standpoint as well, where

You know, being operators or have been in it, there already is a whole robust system and different states need different things because different states are different.

Scott (24:38.942)
Different states be different. The only element that I think would benefit or the only way there would be a benefit in doing a more federally controlled oversight is for organizations or parks that operate in multiple states. And there are several. Well, there's one gigantic one now. Six Flags is in a bunch of different states.

you can define the word states many different ways. But they're in a bunch of different geographic locations, we'll put it that way. And so if they had, I would think it would be easier for them if there were some federal mandates or federal guidelines for them to just simply apply them across the board and then use the state regulations as a secondary. I think that would help eliminate those gaps in consistency that Philip was mentioning.

Philip Hernandez (25:34.344)
Yeah. Well, and I just want to say also from the manufacturer standpoint, like when you're mentioning Six Flags, like Six Flags, buy stuff from manufacturers, know, not like Disney builds sometimes their own stuff. But like, for example, for our lights, we're not waiting for some like, you know, we're like, we're designing to the highest possible threshold. And so I think that's a lot of what IAPA also means is like, you know, the manufacturers are not like designing stuff only to be used in California or Texas. They are like,

Scott (25:36.445)
So I.

Philip Hernandez (26:02.974)
designing stuff to be used in any area and making it way over over engineered to what it needs to be. And that's what we do with our lights as well.

Scott (26:10.762)
Your company is, but not all companies do. I guess, I mean, there's a major manufacturer in a sub industry in the attractions arena, big company. They build garbage product, but they're still there.

Philip Hernandez (26:12.576)
That's true. That's true. That's true. That's true. Yeah.

Scott (26:31.406)
because people still like them, they still break down, they're really flashy and look really good up front and don't make it through a single season, but they're still there. So now, I'm not necessarily accusing them of being unsafe, but my point being, if we leave it completely up to the manufacturers, the turnaround time when something is considered to be a

Philip Hernandez (26:32.16)
That's true.

Philip Hernandez (26:35.569)
yes, we know of them.

Scott (26:59.316)
unsafe, inappropriate, not up to standard, the turnaround time if we leave it completely up to the manufacturers is significantly slower than if there was some sort of mandated regulation. And as long as there are strong state regulations and the states are smart enough to put those in place to keep the businesses running in an appropriate manner, and it's not the big boys that I'm really afraid of, it's the independent parks.

that have to make choices based on finances, based on location, based on the owner's whim, quite honestly. That happens a lot in smaller parks. These family-owned, some of the family-owned attractions and parks that are even relatively big, the only person making the decisions is the patriarch or the matriarch or whichever member of the family happens to be sitting in the CEO office at the time.

Philip Hernandez (27:22.9)
Yeah.

Scott (27:47.462)
and we just have to make sure that they are continued to be provided with information. Education and information and opportunity to improve are those things that need to be offered simply to everyone. So that we don't need, know, if everyone was perfect and everyone wanted to make their parks the safest they could possibly be, you're absolutely right. There would need to be no regulation whatsoever. But that's not always the case.

Philip Hernandez (28:09.556)
Yeah. Well, that's a good point. Yeah. I think it's mainly the smaller operators as we've, as we've seen, there's safety issues at every everything, but yeah.

Scott (28:16.8)
safety issues at big operators too. We've seen those too. So, but...

Philip Hernandez (28:20.392)
So last one here, we're not gonna have time to finish this entire section, but the last element that I think is relevant is they have a section about unmanned aircraft systems, which are drones. And that, of course, is related directly to the stories that we talked about previously on shows just recently about the drone crashes and whatnot that happened in Florida and elsewhere. But it should be no surprise that what IAPA advocates for is

that they wanna classify fixed site amusement parks as restricted zones. They say the designating fixed site amusement parks as restricted zones would reduce the number of drones flying over these parks. It would also allow parks to identify and address any drones unlawfully operating within these zones and contact law enforcement for assistance. Owners and operators of fixed facilities should also be allowed to use their own drones for entertainment, security, and safety purposes.

And of course, you know, we've talked about this before, know, the drones have safety concerns, privacy concerns, operational disruption. I mean, you even see that with the building of, of Epic where the drones are like going in and making videos of all the construction. mean, there's so many like, concerns around these. The only things I would point to would just be the cost of implementing detection and mitigation systems. we also don't really even have any yet that are really.

of that and also like how that would work the enforcement challenges like they're gonna see a drone and try and find a way to figure out the owner or flag it and then report it to law enforcement and then what is law enforcement gonna do? I mean there's so many like I mean you know taking care like I don't know I don't know about all of that because it's like you can't like you can't shoot it down because then it's gonna fall and hit somebody because the theme park you know there's people everywhere.

Scott (30:16.088)
But you also can't enforce a law that hasn't been passed. You also can't find a way to make it enforceable if it's not a law to begin with. And this is nothing new for theme parks. I talked about it last time, and that was the no-fly zones over theme parks. That was common practice years ago.

Philip Hernandez (30:16.094)
So it's really a question of what do you actually do about

That's true.

Philip Hernandez (30:33.77)
Yep. Yeah.

Scott (30:35.278)
and drones have slipped through because they're a new technology that didn't exist several years ago. the same idea that was the no-fly zone should be, I agree with IAPA's recommendation 100 % on this one. There's no...

Philip Hernandez (30:49.044)
Well, no fly zone except they want to fly their own drones.

Scott (30:52.098)
that's no-fly zone for outside, you know, to help protect, to help protect the ability to fly their own drones. Yeah, no, I think it is exactly right. It's basically taking the no-fly zone and making it apply to drones, not just helicopters and airplanes.

And it's above a certain, it's always been above, or in the past, it's always been above a certain altitude. So, or below a certain altitude becomes the no-fly zone. So, anyway, yeah, I think this is, to me, this is a no-brainer. It is also a very much an everything old is new again. It's just new technology, but taking an old approach to it, which I think is the right way to go. And speaking of going, it's time for us to go, because we're out of time. But before I go, before I go, hey, Philip, where can all of our friends find

out how to listen to green tagged unhinged.

Philip Hernandez (31:42.944)
Well, I'm so glad you asked, Scott. You know what? We have a wonderful Patreon set up. You can go to Patreon and just search for green tagged, or you can just go to Patreon slash green tagged. And there we have our green tagged unhinged series where we do an extra bonus episode every week. And this week we're going to be talking about Disney and some of the executive changes that are happening at Disneyland and the different parks and what that's going to do. We're also going to talk about the AI debacle at Disneyland and all this other nonsense.

So it's always a fun time and you get access to talk to us directly and suggest topics that we will answer your questions and talk about your topics. So come over and join us in the unhinged.

Scott (32:23.862)
Yes, come over to the unhinged side. We've got cookies. But instead of being unhinged right now, I'm going to say goodbye. Thank you all very much for listening to this show. Hopefully we will see you in unhinged very shortly. And we will see you next week here on Green Tagged, Theme Parking 30.