Walt Disney Company And Its International Theme Parks

It’s no doubt that creating a family oriented theme park based on popular, beloved cartoon characters and imagination was a good idea. From Cinderella’s castle to the famous Main Street, U.S.A, there’s something extraordinary lying around every corner. Walt Disney World, other wise known as “the happiest place on earth”, or the place “where dreams come true”, was founded by a man with a dream of creating a place where children and parents could spend time together while making amazing memories. However, this extravagant amusement park is only one of the major accomplishments of Walt Disney.

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.

“Walt wanted to create an amusement park in which his cartoon characters could come to life and interact with the visitors.” A place where both parent and child could have fun. So in 1955 Walt purchased 160 acres of land in California and began the $17-million-dollar project to construct Disneyland. His vision of how he wanted to construct Disneyland was unpretentious. He wanted the entrance to embody a euphoric restoration of the conventional American main street. The goal was that people would walk down “Main Street, USA” and want to discover more by going to the other 4 different “dream lands,” he had creted: Fantasyland, Adventureland, Frontierland, and Tomorrowland. Fantasyland was created to be more child orientated, where all of Disney’s

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.

| In 1955, Disneyland was introduced to the American public by creator Walt Disney. It was one of the first theme parks offered in America and attracted crowds of young children and families. The theme park was inspired by many of Walt Disney’s animated features as well as historical figures like Mark Twain and Abraham Lincoln.

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

The parks and resorts component of Disney Corporation in the United States include the Walt Disney World Resort in Florida, the Disneyland Resort in California, Aulani, a Disney Resort and Spa in Hawaii, the Disney Vacation Club, the Disney Cruise Line and Adventures by Disney. Internationally, Disney also has parks and resorts with Disneyland Paris, France, Hong Kong Disneyland Resort in China, Shanghai Disney Resort also in China, and has licenses the operations of Tokyo Disney Resort in Japan. These parks and resorts all have Disney themes. Walt Disney sells admission to all theme parks around the world but also offers numerous

And now, nearly four decades after his death, the maker of said creations, Walt Disney, is not nearly as recognized as he should be. Not only are his works and other projects intriguing, his morals and techniques personally behind them are as well. And yet they weren’t just his morals, they were shared by the country’s people who so desired an example of good principles. Perhaps the most significant scheme of all was his creation of his very own amusement park in 1955, Disneyland, located in Anaheim, California.

With the opening of Tokyo Disneyland in April 1983 and the inflow of yen royalty receipts, the Walt Disney want to increase the assets and decrease debt, they realized they had an opportunity to use the yen royalties from Japan to pay down some of their debt:

Tokyo Disneyland was opened to the public on April 15, 1983. This amusement park was owned and operated by an unrelated Japanese corporation. The Walt Disney Company received royalties, paid in Yen, on certain revenues generated by Tokyo Disneyland. This new overseas business venture was bringing some concern about the foreign exchange risk to Disney. The management team at the Disney has been considering hedging future Yen inflows from Disney Tokyo since 1985. Mr. Anderson, the director of finance at The Walt Disney Company, focused his attention on a possible 15 billion ten-year term loan with an interest rate of 7.5% paid semiannually. On the other hand, Goldman Sachs, who had been working with

After Eisner invested tens of millions of dollars to update and expand attractions and park facilities, Disney recovered its investment with attendance-building strategies. By creating a range of complementary services and entertainment at the park, customers stayed longer and spent more money. A plan was also put in place to develop Disney’s unused acreage and further maximize the profitability of these assets. One result of the above measures was that attendance at Tokyo Disneyland increased by 50% from 10.2m in 1983 to 15.8m in 1991.

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”.

Walt Disney Company had always been successfully operating theme park until 1992. Starting in 1955 where the first Disneyland set its foot at Anaheim, California and in 1983 in Florida (Hill, 2000). While in 1983, Disney faced a true challenge as they opened the first international Disneyland in Tokyo. In a fear of wide cultural differences between American and Japanese, it turned out an unexpected massive successful Tokyo Disneyland. As a result, Disney did not hesitate to invest a big sum of money for Euro Disney in Paris.

Walter Elias "Walt" Disney (December 5, 1901 – December 15, 1966) was an American entrepreneur, cartoonist,animator, voice actor, and film producer. He and his staff created numerous famous fictional characters including Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Goofy. These cartoon characters became so famous that he designed theme park for the entertainment of children and family in U.S.A. Disney then thought to spread the theme parks around the world. Therefore Disney theme parks were opened first in Tokyo, Japan called "Disney Resort" which became sucuessful by luck. The second theme park was opened in Paris called " Disneyland Paris” which became unsuccessful because of the cultural differences between U.S and Paris. Keeping this problem in mind, Disney opened third theme park in Hong Kong called Hong Kond Disneyland which became successful.

Walt Disney Company is famed for its creativity, strong global brand, and uncanny ability to take service and experience businesses to higher levels. In the early 1990s, then-CEO Michael Eisner looked to the fast-food industry as a way to draw additional attention to the Disney presence outside of its theme parks - its retail chain was highly successful and growing rapidly.