Walt Disney Company Case Analysis

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

Disneyland is a huge organization which has about 20,000 direct Disney employees and 3,800 third-party employees. But, every employee is controlled by top management without any remonstrant. The employees are happy with their work and perform well at work. This make a lot of profit for Disneyland. Disneyland as the self-proclaimed “happiest place on earth” occupies an enviable position in the amusement and entertainment worlds as well as the commercial world in general. What make Disneyland so successful in the world? Is just because 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.

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.

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.

     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

One of the most popular tourist attractions by 1955 was the newly opened Disneyland ("Walter"). From the opening of the park, Disneyland has been a popular tourist attraction. Inside the park, many different races and ethnicities of people come in to marvel at Walt Disney’s wondrous creations. Along with visitors from all nations, many of the workers in the Walt Disney parks have come from many different nations. While many people visiting the park come from all corners of the world, they are not the only people from outside the United States.

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

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

of Disneyland’s attractions had a rigid limit on the number of visitors that could be

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

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.

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

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.