Profits at Euro Disney are proving something of a fairytale: the company's net profit for the year rose to 217 million French Francs from 202 million - beating predictions.

The improvement was largely due to higher theme park and hotel sales and better cost control, the company said.

For the year to September, sales at the Hotel and Disney Village operations increased by 13.1% to 2.167 billion FF, mainly attributable to a 5.8% increase in hotel bookings and a large increase in sales at Disney Village.

Visitors to the Disneyland Paris theme park rose from 11.7 million last year to 12.6 million. Sales in the theme park were also up to 5.477 billion FF, from 4.968 billion.

Euro Disney SCA managing director Gilles Pelisson said plans for development, including housing, office space and a shopping centre at the site east of Paris were the key to the company's future.

The project on the 300-hectare site adjoining the Disneyland and Disney Village developments will create "direct value" in the form of lease and other cash income, he said.

Mr Pelisson did not quantify likely cash income, but said the site was likely to attract some 4 billion FF of private and public investment.

He said the company's policy on pricing would continue to be "extremely cautious", but that there would be a "very slight" increase in prices in the year to Sept 1998. Efforts would also be made to reduce the length of queues at the fast-food stalls in the park, with a view to boosting spending per visitor.

At 1:25pm on Thursday, Euro Disney shares were trading up 0.05 FF at 7.45, off a high of 7.70 in a slightly weaker market just after the company's net profit was announced.
 

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