Business Management

The Walt Disney Company has seen their share of success in taking their parks and resorts into global markets. “60 years ago, the first Disney theme park opened, in California and was the brainchild of Walt Disney himself, who was motivated by the lack of entertainment options available to him and his two young daughters.” (Forbes, 2016). Disneyland California penetrated the market rapidly, and its popularity led to the opening of Disney World in Florida, followed by global expansion in Tokyo, Paris, and Hong Kong. Their latest expansion came in June 2016, on a 963 acres’ site in Shanghai, China (Xu, 2012). After one year in operation, Shanghai Disneyland is outpacing their most optimistic projections, and the park’s

In spite of the popularity of Disney’s iconic characters and the immersion into their world that park-goers experience, Disney’s expansion outside of the United

Walking among thousands of smiling children and nostalgic parents through the Main Streets of the U.S.A. at Disney World parks may sound like an American Dream, but upon closer examination, the economics of Disney World may leave someone’s stomach more unsettled than the park goers who have eaten four Mickey bars and a jumbo turkey leg. Disney can be easily compared to the roots of a tree, as its company is continuously growing into every area it can absorb from—in this case, absorbing money. Disney has an industry in the entertainment business, the tourism business, the amusement park industry, and so much more. A company with accessibility in as many markets as Disney possesses is on its way to gaining a large amount of market power. This could be a red flag as it is not unlikely that market power can go hand in hand with monopolization, so should we be scared of the progression of Disney as a company?

Walt Disney is a well known brand that spans across international markets. Disney saw the potential in Asian markets and sought out the opportunity. The movie The Lion King came out in 1996 and assisted Disney in its ventures to the new Asian market. The success of the movie took well in the Asian market and still upholds the reputation today. In the 1990’s over 2,000 theme parks opened in China. Many of these theme parks resulted in failure due to the high competition, poor projections and high costs. Taking about 10 years, Disney opened in Hong Kong in September 2005. Ticket sales were exceeding expectation actually becoming a problem during Chinese holidays, causing Disney to turn away customers. The location was drawing customers from China, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia. Disney’s solution to the capacity and cultural variety was to expand their theme park, but the government held limitations and did not support the expansion. In response to this, Disney planned another theme park just 3 hours north of Hong Kong in Shanghai. Disney believed the new location would bring in a new customer base and help Disney’s profits. One of the main contributors to the success of the Shanghai project was the time it entered the market. Disney Shanghai began construction during the economic crisis of 2009 which created 50,000 new jobs for the Chinese economy.

Strengths:  ‘About 300 million potential customers live within two hours of the [Shanghai] sight’ (Source 4) Creates opportunity for word-of-mouth advertising. Locals of the Shanghai/Pudong District will most likely be the early adopters to the park and have the money to spend there. Shanghai has the highest GDP in China.  ‘[China has] 1.3 billion increasingly wealthy people--290 million of them under 14, Disney's prime audience’ (Source 8) Situation is ideal. Children have a strong influence regarding how their parents spend money.  ‘Retail sales are growing 17% a year in China after adjusting for inflation, almost

Increase in Global Expansion- Disney plays to its brand strength and it shows with the recent opening of Disney Shanghai, that Disney can expand everywhere and anywhere in the market. But not only with its theme parks, the acquisitions of Star Wars and Marvel has led to limitless possibilities of what they can do in the market.

The reason why I am interested in developing a career with Hong Kong Disneyland is that Disneyland is one of the famous theme park in the world. I believe working in Disneyland can broaden my horizon and expand my social network. Most importantly, Hong Kong Disneyland has the passion to become the best theme park. As a newspaper reports, Hong Kong Disneyland will launch an expansion plan, including building new theme areas and new amusement facilities for Marvel Super heroes. With this new theme areas and new amusement facilities, I believe Hong Kong Disneyland will obtain great support in Chinese market. Also, I think Hong Kong Disneyland will become more attractive and famous in the future since the Disneyland company has owned the 21st century fox. By owning the 21st century fox, Disneyland company has the copyright of many new characters, which makes Hong Kong Disneyland able to build more theme areas, such as deadpool's theme area, alien's theme area, or x-men's theme area. With the copyright of the new characters, I believe Hong Kong Disneyland has a broad development space in the future. Therefore, I want to join Hong Kong Disneyland.

Hong Kong’s park was built too small and did not give the magical feel that China needed. The Chinese did not find entertainment value in the park that was created. The biggest factor was that Disney was not popular in China, as Disney had been banned there for over 40 years. Last, the marketing was focused on a family of four when most Chinese are encouraged to only have one child.

Disney theme parks are enormously successful in the United States. Families flock there at all times of the year. Disney’s best customers are repeat customers.[1] When Tokyo Disneyland opened in 1983, it was more popular than Disney ever imagined.[2] With one foot in to the international area, Disney decided to conquer Europe. They scouted out possible locations and decided on an area outside of Paris, France. The deciding

Disney Parks Blog published an article written by Himmelberg (2011) who is the public relations director that she mentioned Disneyland Park opened in the year 1955 which is a meaningful and important date for them. Himmelberg (2011) also stated Tokyo Disneyland from 1983 till now have already built over 30 years, which has been the most popular and profitable park and Paris Disneyland return to the right track after they readjustment the issue. As my personal experience that I have always enjoyed the time I spent in Disneyland Park. Since, I have been to both Disneyland Tokyo and Disneyland Paris that I will be really interesting to find the fact which is more successful and why it is so successful. This essay will be focused on analysis and discuss both Tokyo Disneyland and Paris Disneyland after they open. There are four specific areas will be compared and contrasted, which including vision and strategy, stakeholders, challenge, and risk. Also, provide some recommendation at the end of this paper.

First, we believe that it is necessary to provide some background information about the project from Disney’s and Hong Kong’s perspective. Walt Disney has been considering a proposal to build a new theme park in Asia for some years. In the last few years (late 1990s), the company has seen investors flock to mainland China and is therefore keen to gain a foothold in the Chinese market by opening a new theme park. To Disney, Hong Kong

Disney Keeping their target customers and consumer in mind, Disney took into consideration the various cultural nuances and sensitivities of its host nation. Disney took into account the Chinese cultural aspects and planners went to great lengths to ensure that it was well received by their local Hong Kong population as well as visitors from Southern part of China and visitors from South East Asian countries. Disney rightly identified the importance of Feng Shui and Numerology in Chinese culture and incorporated the same in designing Disney land in Hong Kong.

Disneyland in Hong Kong- Good or Bad? The aim of this essay is to discuss the advantages and disadvantages in having Disneyland coming into Hong Kong. Disneyland is a famous theme part, with outlets all around the world, including Japan, America and France. And now, Disney decided that the next theme part it is going to locate itself is Hong Kong- is how beneficial will it be to Hong Kong? The diagram on the left shows the proposed location of Disney land in Hong Kong. It will be situated at the west of Hong Kong island, in Penny?s Bay. Land reclamation will be used if extra land is needed for Disney to expand in the future.

The actual number of visitors per year never hit the expected number. However, sometimes the park still got too crowded and had to prevent visitors from coming in. During Chinese New Year in Feb 2006, hundreds of people with valid 6-month ticket could not enter the park. It led to chaos and further eroded Hong Kong Disney’s image. Generally this is due to poor capacity planning. Disney tried to boost attendance rate, but neglect its peak capacity. It should smooth demand relative to available park capacity.

Ocean Park is one of Hong Kong’s two major theme parks. Founded in 1977 by the Hong Kong government, Ocean Park has successfully positioned itself as Hong Kong’s “hometown” park and a one-stop, premier destination for entertainment, thrills, and education. Ocean Park exhibited strong financial performance in the past. However, in FY16, the park experienced an 18.8% drop in attendance which correlated to “a year-on-year decrease of 16.4% and 18.6% [for in-park revenue and admission revenue] respectively. ” This major reduction in park revenues is largely attributable to a reduction in Chinese tourism in Hong Kong. Nearly 50% of Ocean Park’s visitors are visitors from mainland China, exposing Ocean Park to a great deal of macroeconomic risk.