Management used the fact that tourists would spend a day at Busch Gardens in nearby Tampa to justify building their own zoological theme park at Disney World just like they built a working backlot and cinema-focused theme park. When it came to the announcement that the Sea World brand was coming to central Florida in the early 70's, Disney incorporated an aquatic attraction into their "Vacation Kingdom" concept. Despite the "Sea World-style show" was never actually built as a part of the Lake Buena Vista Village shopping and entertainment complex, the idea was incorporated into other attractions for Walt Disney World, including the Living Seas pavilion at Epcot Center, which was known for sporting one of the largest aquariums in the world at that time. Anyway, the major
types of tourist attractions were either planned or actually built at Disney World, such as the major theme park, a movie studio, a zoological preserve, a water park, shopping mall (I mean it's a tourist attraction to a certain kind of traveler), and other venues.
But then again, what about the Disney-affiliated tourist magazine, Vacationland?
Well, in the 1980's, Michael Eisner wanted the parks to be better than the competitors, especially in the tourism-focused regions of Southern California and Central Florida. This meant replicating the formulas of other attractions in the regions to be part of the Disney World or Disneyland experience.
After all, the last two theme parks built (or at least designed) by Disney before Eisner took over in 1984 were Epcot Center (1982) and Tokyo Disneyland (1983). The former was an application of Disney's dreams of smart urban planning in the context of a major theme park and the latter was an international Magic Kingdom built with the favorites of the American Kingdoms.
Anyway, Eisner had it focus on the Disney experience, not the tourist experience with places like Cypress Gardens, Miami, the Kennedy Space Center, Busch Gardens, Knott's Berry Farm, Hollywood, Sea World, Universal, etc.
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