The Not-so-Wonderful World of Eurodisney: a Cultural Lesson

In the case “Managing a Global Team: Greg James at Sun Microsystems, Inc. Tsedal Neeley states that lack of inappropriate communication, leadership and decision-making is root of the crisis of HS Holdings. Generally, cultural diversity is based on many things one being the idea that certain characteristics should not be completely disregarded but regulated and valued as important. With this in view, diverse cultural issues can result in organizational problems. First, we must view your techniques to manage your global team and recognize the primary root of the problems. Secondly, you will need to identify who should be responsible for the crisis of HS Holdings because of miscommunication and inefficient leadership. Thirdly, defining roles and job descriptions is extremely important in an open work environment and

The complex was a subject of controversy during the periods of negotiation and construction in the late 1980s and early '90s, when a number of prominent French figures voiced their opposition and protests were held by French labour unions and others. A further setback followed the opening of the resort as park attendance, hotel occupancy and revenues fell below projections. The complex was renamed from Euro Disney

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

It then describes Disney’s entry into Europe. The various entry barriers, decision making, differences and problems faced in setting up of the Euro Disney.

Euro Disney marketers have recognized a trend. People are going to theme parks during the weekends for adults as well as children entertainment. Indeed, there is an existing need for entertainment of this kind. Therefore, an opportunity exists in the European market that Euro Disney could have taken advantage of.

Other than that, each park is designed and structured towards the country’s culture. As operations exist outside the United States, Disney had to consider and accept the cultural differences between their home market of the United States and different international markets. A key theory that assisted Disney in global expansion to Shanghai, China is the understanding of Hofstede’s cultural factors which focuses on six cultural dimensions; power distance, individualism/collectivism, masculinity/femininity, uncertainty avoidance, long-term/short-term orientation, and indulgence/restraint (Steers, 2016). “Hofstede compares culture to the “software of the mind” that differentiates one group or society from another.” (Steers, 2016). Figure 1 illustrates the cultural differences between China and the United States through Hofstede’s six cultural dimensions.

Culture difference will influence the number of tourists and the acceptance level of customers. Euro Disney followed the brand policies to the English instructions only, no wine providing in the theme park, high price of ticket, and standardized merchandise and food items，consequently wide spread dissatisfaction among the customers. When a new brand enters different cultures, it is inevitable for customers in new market to repel it or spend much time to accept it，so the new brand should be brought closer to local culture by providing a platform to interact with the brand in customer’s terms. Also culture different will bring different consumption patterns, Europeans are likely to spend reasonable price on entertainment, so the price of Euro-Disney will be too high to accept and decrease the number of tourists in Euro-Disney. Different culture has different drinking and eating habits，Euro-Disney forbad drinking wine in lunch time，but most French like to drink wine when they enjoy their meal. All of these elements deriving from culture difference will influence the revenue of Euro-Disney and even result in the failure of Euro-Disney.

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

The wonderful world of Disney is alive and well all over the world, in the United States, China, Japan and Paris, bringing in an impressive 2.2 billion dollars and boasted a record number of nearly 134.4 million visitors worldwide, according to Themed Entertainment Association. (Themed Entertainment Association, 2014) Disney Paris, unlike other Disney parks, has not seen the same kind of success, due to a variety of issues, including cultural, financial, and business related decisions they did not factor well into the European market. It was not until Disney (US) bailed Disney Paris out, not once, but many times, before profit was seen by the popular European attraction.

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.

All the initiatives like laying people off, streamlining things, globalization was like going by the turnaround book and yet the financial picture grew worse

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.

Mickey, a major promotion tool of Disney management did not create reason or attraction enough for the European community, unlike at the sister theme park Tokyo Disneyland. European families found EuroDisney to be an “over-rated” promotion of American culture and lifestyle, contrary to what

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.

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.