The Not-so-Wonderful World of Eurodisney-Things Are Better Now at Paris Disneyland

Similar problems occurred in Disneyland Tokyo, where management didn’t even think about the height difference of Asians and Americans, resulting in too high public phones for Japanese guests. Concluding it is clear that the American company originally tried to implement a standardization strategy, when launching theme parks in other countries, without taking the local culture into consideration. Country specific procedures and regulations, and different local customer preferences forced Disney to adapt features of the US theme park business model to the local markets.

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.

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.

The progression of technology and its presence in society has strongly molded the way people live their lives today, and the way they will continue to live their lives years from now. But with this advancement of science and increased order, there is a consequence that seems to be a heavy price to pay: the loss of human emotion and freewill, and the submission to organization and commands. The tourist industry is one such manufactured machine, so to speak, that influences people's views in certain aspects. One of these aspects, culture, is a main focus of post-modernist writer Bryan Turner, who believes that "tourism invents and demands empathy...makes cultures

     Along with his serious Down to earth side Disney also lived part of his life in the realms of fantasy and imagination. His great love of fantasy and the great lack of family entertainment in America inspired Walt to build a theme park of his own. All of America thought that this time Disney had really gone crazy. As Disney once said about the reactions to his ideas for a park "Almost everyone warned us that Disneyland would be a Hollywood spectacular - a spectacular failure. But they were thinking about an amusement park, and we believe in our idea - a family park where parents and children could have

“Disneyland will never be completed. It will continue to grow as long as there is imagination left in the world.” – Walt Disney (Goodreads). The success of Walt Disney films, theme parks and company has built a legacy and attracted the attention of millions of people. Through the animated stories they enable to fill children’s imaginations with entertainment. Disney has embodied American culture with its catchy tunes and mass marketing. It has portrayed different repertories through movies and TV shows that shine light into different cultures, which is centered to be a controversial aspect. Not only has Disney become controversial, it has also become popular with its accomplishment in being able to create a wide spectrum of animated characters.

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

Competing amusement parks has upgraded their attractions to attract more consumers and Disney is has recently strategizing this approach to a more concentrated perspective. This can ultimately lower their revenues until the plan is complete.

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.

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

Walt Disney overestimated the magic that was to be in introducing Europe's most lavish and extravagant theme park in April of 1992. The fiscal year 1992-1993 brought EuroDisney a loss of nearly $1 billion.

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.