My understanding is that it is a pre-Eisner agreement. The company was considering, at one time, selling off rights to the theme parks, and separately selling off the few existing "Disney"resorts, and simply licensing resort operators to build on Disney property. When Eisner came on board, he instead decided to expand the Disney resort operations, but was locked into this particular agreement with the as yet unbuilt "Swan/Dolphin" He was able to renegotiate to allow the company input on design specs...or else you might be looking at very typical, standard hotels.