Disney in Asia

Tokyo Disneyland (TDL) was the Walt Disney Company’s first attempt at planning and developing an international theme park. In the 1970’s after Walt Disney’s death, the Walt Disney Company was not doing well financially when the Oriental Land Company (OLC) approached the company about opening a theme park in Tokyo. The Oriental Land Company, according to Raz (1999), author of Riding the Black Ship: Japan and Tokyo Disneyland, is a partnership between two large firms in Japan, the Mitsui Real Estate Development and Keisei Electric Railway (p.4). The Walt Disney Company was hesitant to open a new theme park in its current financial state, but the OLC offered them a deal that was hard to resist. The Oriental Land Company would own and operate the Tokyo Disneyland while the Walt Disney Company would receive “10 percent of admissions fees and 5 percent of the revenues from food and souvenir sales” (Raz, 1999, p. 27). The Walt Disney Company also received licensing fees up to 20 million dollars for their characters, attractions, and more, as well as control over the design of the park and control of park operations (Raz, 1999, p. 27; Eisner & Schwartz, 1998, p.263). Although the deal seemed alluring at the time, the Walt Disney Company would soon come to regret the deal they made with the Oriental Land Company.

Lessons the company should have learned Through past experiences Disneyland and its management teams have most certainly learnt the importance of culture and national differences in working styles, consumer preferences, laws and public expectations and that before initiating any international project the studying of the host countries culture is the outmost priority. Having a person in its top management, which already knows the language, the culture and the way of life in the welcoming country can be helpful. Nevertheless, this is not sufficient. To work in a cross-culture environment, the company has to be open to new suggestions and be prepared to learn from new foreign employees and consumers alike. Moreover, to satisfy the local customers, cultural differences should be included in major final decisions. For instance, the price politic should be adjusted to the local expectations. The same goes

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

Disney believed in magic. Disney is a common household name. In fact, some toddlers can recite the name of their favorite characters from their favorite Disney movie. It is not uncommon to see adults watching a Disney movie, and I would venture out and say most Americans have been to Disney Land or Disney World once in their life. Needless to say, Disney is part of the American culture. However, translating the success that Disney has had in the United States to another country can present a lot of challenges. As we will see, in this case, Disney did not do their homework when it came to planning this project in Europe. Some of the challenges that the company had were their makings such as hubris management and a lack in understanding their customer’s cultural differences

Disney has survived many competitors coming into the space by leveraging its powerful brand and experience. This does not indicate they can stop trying to be relevant. Video games and the rise of virtual reality are becoming huge threats to the theme parks. Why pay a premium for a one time admission when you can buy a virtual reality headset and play basketball with Lebron James. Disney has slowly adapted but must act quicker in the future on new technologies to stay relevant.

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

Disney World is said to be the most magical place on earth. For some that is true and for others it’s not. I however, am one of those people who say it’s true. Disney is my favorite place that I have been to in the world so far. Some people will say they don’t like Disney but I don’t see how that could be true. I mean, with all the rides, activities, characters, food, and a lot more. It just doesn’t seem possible to not love it. Even if you don’t like Disney though you know what it is. This is because Disney World is one of the most well know places in the world because most children love it, therefore, it will only continue to grow.

What are the cultural problems that Walt Disney Company has faced in opening theme parks outside the U.S.?

In the United States exist many environments or areas deemed as a comfort zone or a special place for an individual to settle down and have the best experiences. One place that I would be content at would be Disney World; in my perspective, Disney World is a monumental place to me and I enjoy the memories created there. Thrills from roller coaster rides, the scent of popcorn or salted pretzels, the familiar costumes of our favorite Disney characters and the love of family and friends enjoying their time. Disney World is a kid’s wonderland for those who enjoyed the shows and movies developed by the company. Six years old, I could remember the first traveling to Disney World; I remember getting all the autographs from my Buzz Lightyear, Woody,

It is always an enormous challenge when a business wants to expand internationally because of the need to be sensitive to a whole new market. I am sure that Disney Imagineer was used to dealing with Americans and cultures related to ours; expanding in Hong Kong was a whole new thing to them. If I oversaw the Disney Imagineer Corps I would have not done anything different relating to the integrating the Hong Kong traditions and culture within their parks. I honestly believe that the Imagineer Corps did a phenomenal job being aware of the tradition and wanting to integrate local traditions. Integrating the Feng Shui practice was a big plus because Feng Shui is philosophical system that the Chinese culture follows. It is the practice of locating

IT suggests that there are two sources of isomorphic pressures (1) from the home country and (2) the host country (Davis, 2000). There are so many forces that a company must entertain and must decide between using coercive isomorphism or native isomorphism; corporate strategies from the parent company or imitate from a similar company in the new market (Escobar and Vredenburg, 2010). These pressures are a struggle for Disney who has a strong internal institutional environment and wants to keep their American values. That is WDC solely wants to practice an ethnocentric approach (Karadjova-Stoev and Mujtaba, 2011). In addition, Disney has found success with their first three parks because of its American experience: “TDL is an American in

When the International Offer of Shares for the Euro Disneyland S.C.A. (in the following called Euro Disney) was published in October 1989 the plans for this new enterprise of the Walt Disney group were ambiguous. The financial plans for the first year of operation projected total revenues of FF 5,482 million and a net profit after taxation of FF 204 million. For the following years the development should be even more impressive. At that time the plans were seen as a consequent application of the concepts of the existing Disney-designed theme parks.[1]

Disney operates in very competitive industries such as media, tourism, parks and resorts, interactive entertainment and others. The competitive landscape changes quite drastically in the media industry, where news and TV go online and new competitors with new business models compete more successfully than incumbent media companies. Disney’s parks and resorts business segment also receives strong competition from local competitors who can offer better-adapted product. This results in growing competitive pressure for Walt Disney Company (Ovidijus Jurevicius).

Even in the United States, Disneyworld (Florida) and Disneyland (California) vary in there social forces. Cast Members (Disney’s term for employees) in CA are trained to be friendly and greet every guest, while in FL they are trained to only greet guests who seek them out. The political, legal, and regulatory factors again, vary from theme park to theme park. The parks in the United States have more restrictions than say those of Hong Kong, China. In the U.S, minors (age 15-17) are only allowed to work 20 hours a week. In Hong Kong, young persons (ages 15-17) are allowed to work up to 48 hours a week. Regulatory factors such as this differ in each region. The Walt Disney Company Parks and Resorts has quite an extreme variety of natural environments. The weather in Florida for example can get in the 100’s regularly whereas in California it can get as cold as the low 50’s. These weather conditions actually are a big factor in guests determining which park they want to visit. Technology seems to stay consistent between most of the theme parks. In fact, many of the theme parks have some of the same rides at their parks. The global forces actually can create threats to the company. The addition of the newest theme park to the company, Shanghai Disney, took several years to become accepted. This has been common throughout the duration of The Walt Disney Company. Many people vote against a new theme park or resort because of the crowds that it

5. Tokyo’s overwhelming success encouraged Disney to conquer the European market. They felt that they were able to evoke international appeal of the Disney concept and it would not be a hard task to wet their feet in Europe.