The Cultural Barbarism of EuroDisney
1. After Disney's golden step towards Japan, the first years in Europe weren't that good. A combination of factors contributed to a disastrous start Paris. The biggest factor contributing to the poor performance on the long run was the failing cultural adaptation. Disney build, promoted and communicated EuroDisney as a piece of marvelous America in Europe. Everything about the park was American and cultural differences between America and Europe were completely neglected. This resulted not only in negative experiences by customers itself, but also in a heavy load of criticism from the intellectual segment of France, which traditionally didn't have good relations with 'Americanism'.
Besides the cultural problems, a lot of secondary factors contributed to the poor start. First of all, the price to enter the park and especially staying at the hotels, was too high in the European mindset. A nightly stay at a hotel at EuroDisney was priced 110 to 380 dollar, prices compared to a very good hotel in the center of Paris. Customers weren't willing to spend this amount of money.
Another factor was the type of vacations Europeans normally have. Instead of going on a lot of short trips, Europeans take a major break in July or August. The park was promoted as a place to stay a whole vacation, but since the Europeans spend more time on a vacation than three days, this conflicted with the European behavior. While staying at the park, the amount of days spent at EuroDisney was also disappointing: instead of the estimated three days Europeans just stayed two days, resulting in less revenues from hotels, restaurants and souvenirs. The general amount of money spent a day by an European customer was also lower than expected (in Tokyo a family spent 600 dollar, in Paris just 280 dollar).
The opening of the park in 1992 with big events such as the World's Fair in Sevilla and the Olympic Games in Barcelona during the summertime was also unfortunate. Besides these interesting events, the transatlantic airfare war and currency movements made going abroad for vacation a cheap option for Europeans. This resulted in just a small difference between going to Disneyland Orlando and EuroDisney for the holidays.
2. Although Disney as a mother company was probably blind sighted by the success of the Japanese Disneyland, the mistakes made in the nineties with EuroDisney were at least partly foreseeable and can be accounted on the management team that made the decisions for the European park.
In 1893 a world fair was held in Chicago Illinois to celebrate the 4thcentenniel of Columbus discovering the Americas. The exposition displayed grand buildings with beautiful architecture, hundreds of exhibits ranging from exotic tribes of Africa, to new inventions, expertly constructed landscape, and astounding attractions such as the first Ferris wheel. The fair lasted for six months and had over 27 million visitors, including ¼ of the American population.
Socio-cultural factors can impact the growth in Walt Disney World in many ways those being both positive and negative. A positive socio-cultural factor being the rise in the amount of annual leave that people are able to get nowadays, this results in more people being able to travel to Disneyworld more often and for longer periods of time. A negative socio-cultural factor that can affect Disneyworld is disposable incomes as single income families or families with little or no income will find it a lot more difficult to be able to go on a holiday, let alone go on holiday to a place such as Disneyworld.
This report attempts to examine the Walt Disney Company as an organization whose international operations play a vital role in the company’s continuing existence. This report seeks to present a review and analysis of the company’s global strategy by analyzing the key internal and external factors that impact on the company and how it has used alliances and acquisitions as part of its global strategy. As a human technology-intensive company, this paper seeks to understand how Disney was able to leverage its resources to create a competitive advantage. As an important aspect of its operations, relevant management issues are reviewed to see how it has affected the company’s global expansion strategy.
In communication, Disney is most vulnerable in public and government relationships. Eisner developed in proposal of a new theme land near the national capital; however the ideal property was on historical and important property within the Commonwealth of Virginia. Destroying history in order to make potential profit did not stick with citizen and land effect of the idea.
As financial consultants, we have been asked by Walt Disney’s management to provide an evaluation of this alternative to the company for this financing decision. For this estimate, we have reviewed the data of the Consolidated Income Statements from 1982 to 1983, the Consolidated Balance Sheets of 1984 and 1983, the Historical Summary of Average Yen/Dollar Exchange Rates and Price Indexes, ECU/Yen Swap flows in the following ten years, Yen Long-dated foreign exchange forward, Cash flow of 10-year ECU Euro bonds with sinking fund (Exhibit 6), and also the list of the French Utility’s outstanding publicly Traded Eurobonds.
Services are a large part of the composition of France’s gross domestic product. It accounts for 70.6% of the GDP and a whopping 71% of the work force (“CIA 2001”. 1). Tourism has a lot to do with the very large chunk services take up in France’s gross domestic product. People make their way to France for many different reasons. Some people come for the great food, wines, and pastries. Others come for the beautiful scenery of the French Riviera, Eiffel Tower, and fun festivals such as the gypsy festival which is known for its extravagant singing and dancing. Others come for art and entertainment which they can take in at any one of France’s many museums such as the Louvre. The Cannes Film Festival is another event that makes France an attractive destination for those who love the arts. The festival brings film stars together from all over the world to promote their new summer movies.
Disney’s long-run success is mainly due to creating value through diversification. Their corporate strategies (primarily under CEO Eisner) include three dimensions: horizontal and geographic expansion as well as vertical integration. Disney is a prime example of how to achieve long-run success through the choices of business, the choice of how many activities to undertake, the choice of how many businesses to be in, the choice of how to manage a portfolio of businesses and the choice of how to create synergies between those businesses (3, p.191-221). All these choices and decisions are made through Disney’s corporate strategies and enabled them to reach long-term success. One will discuss Disney’s long-run success through a general approach. Eisner’s turnaround of the company and his specific implications/strategies will be examined in detail in part II. Disney could reach long-run success mainly through the creation of value due to diversification and the management and fostering of creativity, brand image and synergies between businesses (1, p.11-14).
The hotels around the park have reasonable cost unless you want to stay on the park at the hard rock hotel. The range is from anywhere from $50-$550 dollars night. The higher prices is for the people that have more money than most people and that want to stay in a very nice place. The pros are that there are lots of choices to of hotels to stay at and some are very cheap and easy to afford. Cons are that if you want to stay at a very nice luxury hotel it is going to cost a lot of money to stay there
Also, Disney was accustomed to American visitors having a three day vacation to a park; where as the French experience was two days at most.
recent experience with Disneyland in Paris not to have a too aggressive capital structure in place, they
Other factors are strict visa restrictions keeping foreign ticket holders away. According to the hotels and tourist sites, the Olympics should have brought business to Beijing, but the reality is too far from the expectation. Means they have to decrease their rate to attract more tourists to stay at their hotels.
One of the key factors of the successful diversification is the very strong branding of the name Disney. That the name was famous after the success in the early years made it among other things possible to go into the theme park industry. Evaluated isolated, the theme parks was a success. But when also accounting for the synergies created, the decision to go into this industry was a huge success. It has created a spiral of synergies, where the characters in the movies get more popular due to the parks, as well as the fact that when people are visiting the parks they get stimulated to buy the merchandise. This is just one example of the synergies that exist in Disney. When Michael Eisner took over control in Disney, he kept focusing on same corporate values as earlier, which are quality, creativity, entrepreneurialism and teamwork. These values have been preserved despite of the size of Disney, and are an important factor in sustaining and building the Disney brand.
Euro Disney’s decision to open its Theme Park near Paris has caused a negative publicity in the sight of many French politicians. In fact, they have objected the existence of Theme Parks in the center of their French culture since the park has been viewed as a visible symbol of the U.S. culture. Although Euro Disney marketers probably choose this location, in particularly France, due to the fact that is the center of Europe and could most probably be the most convenient place for people to arrive and settle in their hotel to be entertained. For instance, people from all over Europe could travel quickly to Paris due to short distance and travel convenience like people from Germany or Spain could quickly and conveniently arrive in Paris.
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 creating memories for families. Disney is a leader when it comes to the theme park business, and other parks look at Disney as a leader. An example of this is that other parks will not raise admission prices, until Disney first raises their prices. WESH.com said "It remains to be seen if Disney's move will trigger a round of similar increases at other Orlando theme parks. Historically, when Disney raises its prices, the other parks follow" (2011, p.1). There is not a company in the world that can provide the "magic" that the Walt Disney World company can provide (Disney.com, 2011).
That is to say, Hong Kong Disneyland offers a uniquely western experience within the confines of Asia. The perception of Hong Kong Disneyland as a global brand can vary depending on the social groups that each consumer identifies as. Mainland Chinese visitors that are unaccustomed to western culture and modernity can feel as though they’ve stepped into a separate western sanctuary where they can fully experience another way of life. The more modern and westernised Hong Kong Chinese visiting the park are able to enjoy their visit in a relaxing