Euro Disneyland – Cultural Differences Between U.S. and France

Mickey Mouse is pretty much a household name in the American society, so it was not surprising that theme parks, Disneyland and Disney World, were soon created inspired by the little mouse. Disney’s theme parks are on both the east and west coast in America and the company wanted to spread the joy across the globe. When the company decided to spread their wings across the ocean they faced challenges because “global expansion is difficult for any business” (Ferrell, O., Hirt, G., & Ferrell, L., 2009), but more so when dealing with an American icon. When expanding globally there are many things that need to be taken into consideration such as cultural, legal, and economic differences. When Disney first attempted to establish a theme park in Europe, they did not research cultural differences and faced hardships in the beginning. There were protesting and low attendance were their main concerns for the first few year, but then with restructuring, the park including a name change to something more culturally accepted the park was able to turn around. When they expanded to China, they hired a specialist to assist with the cultural differences and that seemed to help somewhat. When building Disney in China they took into consideration the cultural superstitions associated with numbers, but that did not stop protesters from voicing their opinions about things such as the park being too small and not offering enough. Although there are protesters against Disney, they are helping

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

The Disney organization does seem to focus a bit too much on hair. "Main Street, USA", the heart of Euro Disneyland, it promises, will feature an old time "Harmony Barber Shop" to deal with "messy hair and hairy chins" — and perhaps even offending mustaches. One difference from California or Florida: Parts of Main Street and waiting areas to get into the attractions will be covered over as a concession to Paris's rainy weather.

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.

Individualism is often viewed as a positive trait in America, suggesting a certain level of personal confidence. American society tends to reward independent thinkers and those who decide autonomously. To this end, individuality has become a value in many American homes. Although individualism is widely received and respected in American culture, it is not as well respected in other cultures. One culture in particular which frowns on individualism is the Asian culture.

Individualism is a habit of being self- reliant. A cultural value is a persons desired and preferred way of acting. Every culture has their own cultural values and individualism but whether individualism is their cultural value is up to the person entirely. This could pose a conflict when persuading the wrong culture especially a culture as diverse as the American culture. Poranee Sponsel is a born and raised Thai who is now a professor at a university in Hawaii and gives us the outsider’s perspective of the American culture. In Sponsel’s article “The Young, the Rich, and the Famous: Individualism as an American Cultural value” Sponsel

     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.

Individualism is the tendency of people to look after themselves and their immediate family only. This dimension is in direct contrast with collectivism, the tendency of people to belong to groups that look after each other in exchange for loyalty. Hofstede has found that economically advanced countries tend to place greater emphasis on individualism than do poorer countries. For example, the United States, Great Britain, the Netherlands, and Canada have high individualism. In contrast Ecuador, Guatemala, Pakistan, and Indonesia have low individualism. Although Hofstede did not measure changes in individualism along with a time continuum, he did find that Japan has a higher individualism score than any other country in the Orient. Given the

When Walt Disney opened Disneyland July 17th 1955 it was culmanation of ideas he had been formulating for ten years. Walt had a specific vision of what the park should be and how it should look, but also left the park open to the interpretation and ideas that each child who visited left with in thier memories. The idea of a place to welcome all and have no credance on who a person is but of the value of thier imagination and heart is an astounding thought, not only for the mid 1950s, but for today also. Disneyland has never been limited by what people believe are normal limitations but has strived to always shock and inspire with each visit to the park. Walt had been using this same formula of groundbreaking inoventions and a never

The cultural problems faced by Walt Disney Company when opening theme parks outside the United States were events, cuisine, and trends, as well as country identity and local labor markets. An article by Spencer, 1995, identified several problems incurred by Walt Disney World in opening Euro Disney including spending habits, miscalculations of quality and design standards, and failure to capitalize on key opportunities that could have been had had they researched more deeply the vacationing habits of Europeans, the seasonal differences to their other locations, political issues such as environmental impacts and foreign national pride, market integration by adapting products to the needs and customs of the foreign nation. ?Disney alienated most of France by imposing intact its American standards of dress, behavior, and morality on the operations of its French-based park (Laitamaki 1994)?(Spencer, 1995).

The United States has the highest score in the category of individualism with 91, followed by France at 71, and Spain at 51. For America to score that high isn’t at all surprising to me. It is even considered to be one of the most individualistic cultures in the world. Our society is predominately focused on “I” instead of “we”, as in they believe in putting themselves ahead of others to the point that other cultures may even view it as selfish. France is also considered an individualist society, however, is considered to have stronger family bonds than other individualistic societies. The French also believe in having a distinct line between work and private life than the U.S. does, even though they scored lower. They also believe in relying

Euro Disney could not modify the main theme of other Disney parks to create something unique for Europeans. Restaurants were not prepared according to the European eating habits and one of the biggest mistakes was not selling alcoholic beverages in the park which has very close connection with French culture. Customers had to leave the park to buy those from outside.

Culturally, Disney cannot force itself on another people, which in this case was the whole of the European continent. Disney promoted its product, the theme park, similar to that of Tokyo Disneyland believing Europe wanted their piece of “Americana”.

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.

French score high in Uncertainty Avoidance. The French do not like surprises and structure planning is required. The French do not follow all rules, and power holders have privileges and do not feel obliged to follow the rules. Equity theory is not universally applicable but it important in Canada “equal pay for equal work” (Luthans, 2011).