Case Study Disneyland Resort Paris

Introduction The Walt Disney Company is an American diversified multinational mass media corporation. It is the largest media conglomerate in the world in terms of revenue. It generated US$ 42.278 billion in 2012. Disney was founded on October 16, 1923, by Walt and Roy Disney as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, and established itself as a leader in the American animation industry before diversifying into live-action film production, television, and travel. The Walt Disney Company operates as five primary units and segments: The Walt Disney Studios or Studio Entertainment, which includes the company's film, recording label, and theatrical divisions; Parks and Resorts, featuring the company's theme

The case “Euro Disney: First 100 days” talks about the issues faced by the Walt Disney Company when expanding to international borders. The case begins with the history of Disneyland and then describes the reasons behind its success and expansion to various states across the country. It then describes the success of Tokyo Disneyland, first Disney theme park outside America and the factors affecting it.

     However, the opportunity should have not been ‘taken for granted’. Other cultural factors should have been analyzed to decide the positioning of Theme Park. Their prevalent mistake has been the failure to recognize the cultural differences between Americans and French people. Locating the Theme Park near Paris and acquiring agricultural land as well as imposing the U.S spirit undeniably negatively affects french citizens. The French peoples’ lifestyle deeply depends on the gratitude to their traditional agriculture. Thus, the land takeover by an American Company mainly does not provide pleasure to them.

As a tourist corporation, Walt Disney is similar to a machine that regulates people's thoughts, compromises their individuality, and alters their perception on certain aspects of society.

When Walt Disney first opened the gates of Disneyland in 1955, he envisioned a utopian reality, where he focused on fulfilling dreams for both the young and young at heart, providing relief and comfort. Not only did he revolutionize family vacations, he believed that in hopes of creating a magical park would not only bring families together, but a place where parents and children could have fun together. As more elaborative and imaginative his park became, his creation had became a source of joy, happiness, with the hope that it would bring inspiration to the rest of the world. The Disney vision, Walt originally planned has completely transformed the leisure industry with its unique storytelling, continuing to captivate guests from all around the world.

The Walt Disney Company is known throughout the world as a leader in entertainment. The strategies that the Walt Disney Company have used include competitive advantage, a growth strategy, and a renewal strategy. When a person mentions a theme park, Disney is the first park that comes to mind. They were not the first theme park, but they have mastered the art of creating memories for adults and children alike. As a former employee of Disney I can vouch for the amount of effort that goes into

In my opinion, these are three main reasons attributing to Euro Disney fail. Firstly, the lack of prior market research and study for European lifestyle and cultural before European Disney built. Euro-Disney chose to spend excessive expenditures on the establishment，but Euro-Disney did not recognize the geographic and cultural differences between Europeans and Americans. For example，most of Europeans will not notice leather wallpaper when they had their lunch in Disney，and most Europeans are not used to stay overnight in the theme park, so the heavy investment in hotels will bring more risk for Euro-Disney. Secondly, higher price did

As we know, Disneyland is very success in U.S. when the first Disneyland built in Anaheim, California on 17 July, 1995. After some debate about the site for a European theme park, Michael Eisner and Jacques Chirac signed a contract for the building of s Disney theme park at Marne-la-Vallee, a region of sunflower and sugar-beet farmland and small villages located twenty miles east of Paris (Janis, F., 1998, P.247). However, the European Disneyland was not as such success as they expected. This essay going to regards the main issues in opening the Euro Disneyland and compare the French cultural with American cultural by using Hofstede’s cultural Dimensions and Trompenaars ‘s cultural dimensions. This essay will then end by

Disney parks are known for their clean and well designed atmosphere. However, they felt short in providing the same experiences to Euro Disney customers. Euro Disney failed to deliver the high level of customer service standard to Disney theme parks are known for their, as well as failing to provide the service needs that were unique to the European market.

For my final paper I chose to discuss The Walt Disney Company. Since the Company is so large and made up of four primary business segments, I decided to focus on one particular segment: Parks and Resorts. This segment is composed of the theme parks, cruise-line, and vacation club resorts.

3. Lack of theme parks and the large population that lived in and around Paris had to be targeted and offered a unique, fun filled and mystical theme park. A Disney park in Paris was poised to be a sure shot winner.

"Cultures are dynamic and change occurs when resistance slowly yields to acceptance so the basis for resistance becomes unimportant or forgotten"[2]. Which means that on the part of the European community we are certain to see compromise, but over a period of time. Disney too has to reconcile with the environment it has settled in. We read in the case that Disney does ultimately mend its ways. Making room for continuous change is the best way to go about ones business.

As a conclusion, all of these factors are foreseeable by Disney. Lack of knowledge of the local culture and the American ethnocentric tendency make the foreseeable things covered with the mist. Global recession, wrong pre-assumption, and Unknowledgeable of local culture are controllable things that can be managed well. For example, during the global recession, Disney can introduce affordable packages which may attract people on visiting Euro Disney. The wrong pre-assumption that affect the construction design can be overcome by building a fast and temporary facilities while waiting for the permanent building is being built. Hiring local French advisor is one of the solutions to the lack of local culture knowledge. Yet, The intense competition that came from the Olympics, world fair, and landmark’s event are foreseeable but it’s hard to be controlled as such Olympics is just happening once in 4years and other events might happens once a year. People are more interested to visit those events rather than Euro Disney that can be visited anytime.

The main problem of the Euro Disney was that all calculations made by Walt Disney Company were based on parks in the USA and Japan considering Europe as a mass of people rather than many countries with different languages and cultures. Americans see theme parks as a destination where you can stay between 4 and 6 days. In Europe, Euro Disney was seen as a part of the experience when traveling to Paris. The cost was also a problem for the park. A night in a hotel inside the park costs as much as a high quality hotel in the French capital. So, given that the park was located 40 minutes by car from Paris, visitors preferred to spend a night in the romantic city of Paris.

Hong Kong Disneyland was opened in September 2005 through a joint venture between the Walt Disney International and Hong Kong government. Disney has been on an international expansion since it first opened its park in 1980 in Japan and China being the most lucrative market, Disney decided to open the park in Hong Kong after selecting the city in the bidding process. The park was the first American park in Chinese territory.