Euro Disney: First 100 Days

What factors contributed to EuroDisney’s poor performance during its first year of operation? What factors contributed to Hong Kong Disney’s poor performance during its first year? The factors that contributed to EuroDisney’s poor performance during its first year of operation were their lack of knowledge of their target market and the fact that they did not realize that the target market consisted of more than one culture. Disney tried to force feed American culture with a mixture of what they thought the Europeans would enjoy. By using American characters and the American attitude on ideas such as design, price and experience they were bound to fail; At Hong Kong Disney failed the first year due to their ignorance of the culture again

Disney is trying to extend their business and planning to open a new Disneyland in Istanbul, Turkey. To develop a business one of the principle criteria is to get the best possible fund for it, without money it is impractical to obtain a business. In this report I am going to talk about how Disney will finance their new development.

Communications figured largely in the Disney organization's decision to site its fourth theme park near Paris. The site is within a two-hour flight of 320 million Europeans. The opening of Eastern Europe is another prize for the company, which thinks that millions of people will put Disneyland at the top of a list of places to visit on their first trip to Western Europe.

Historically, the film, music and theme park powerhouse encompassed by the Disney Corporation has enjoyed massive success in exporting its brand, identity and products internationally. And on a domestic scale, Disney's theme parks and resorts have achieved a level of success fully unparalleled in the tourism amusement industry. However, success on a similar scale remains quite elusive where the international theme park industry is concerned. Just as Disney has struggled to gain a foothold with its Paris-based theme park, so too has its Hong Kong destination manifested more challenges than victories.

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

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

Key Facts and critical issues in this case talks about Disney World's big presence in United States with their Anaheim California and Orlando Florida Parks, which allowed national and international tourists to come and experience the wonders of Disney Parks. These parks at the same time created a solid economic stimulus and job opportunities for the State of California and Florida. Due to Disney's great success nationally, it was initially assume that the same success could happen, If Disney expanded business internationally. The journey started when Disneyland first opened on the international front in Tokyo Japan in 1983 (Ferrell, Hirt, Ferrell, 2009). The next international park that followed was constructed in France in 1992 and

When asked about Disney the overwhelming majority will have happy thoughts associated with Disney. However, my research into Euro Disney radically changes my opinion on such a glamourous franchise. This is coming from one of the biggest Disney advocates in the world, Euro Disney is an embarrassment to the Disney name as well as the brand. The disrespectful manner Disney went about creating a new world in a foreign nation lead directly to its looming demise.

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]

Having seen the success achieved by two native Disneylands and the Tokyo Disneyland, with full of optimism, Disney launched another international Disneyland – the Euro Disney on April 12, 1992, in France within its $4.4 billion budget. However, unlike Tokyo Disneyland, Euro Disney did not experience the same success in terms of admissions and revenues. There were several reasons that could explain the frustrations of Euro Disney.

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.

In 1992, Euro Disney was launched in Paris. This project unexpectedly received undesirable feedback from its target market since the company wrongly assumed that it would be easily accepted by the Western European market. Disney received criticisms and negative publicity as they were thought to have brought American imperialism into Europe and the French government acquired farmland just to create the theme park which resulted to protests from the French farmers. Cultural issues also arose as most of its employees did not accept well the management style and the dress code, the customers were not satisfied with the language used in the theme park, with the ban of alcohol consumption, the pricing of tickets and merchandise, etc.

As Disney decided to go global, their first expansion was launched in Japan in 1983 and eventually turned out to be a success but it’ proved to be a false sense of security for its overseas expansion’. When Disney launched its name on the European market in 1992, there were a lot of cultural issues that arose during its planning stages. They were particularly accused of ignoring the French culture and exporting American Imperialism in its European Venture. The main issues were alcohol consumption, language, pricing of tickets and merchandise tarnished the name of the Disney brand. Farmers also protested for the fact that Disney would be using their precious land in constructing their theme parks. These issues made Disney aware that venturing into non-American markets would be very complex due to cultural differences. (Cohen, N/A)

Secondary things such as leisure and traveling would not be in the list of the people’s spending. Beside, during its first year operation, Euro Disney could not compete with its competitors such as Parc Asterix which had undergone a major renovation, the Olympics in Barcelona, and the world’s fair in Seville.