The Not-So-Wonderful World of Eurodisney

The Not-So-Wonderful World of EuroDisney

Question 1

There are a few issues that contributed to poor performance of EuroDisney’s in their first year. First of all, price system would be one of the factors that led to their loss of profit and poor performance. For example, the entrance fees to the park cost $280 for each person only including the facilities, food and drinks. Therefore, it causes visitors from all around the world were not so keen on spending that amount of money to visit the theme park. Other than the entrance fees, the hotel prices are very high as it would cost from $110 to $380 to stay a night at the Newport Bay Club in EuroDisney. Thus, the charges of the hotel has also become another issue for the visitors to decide whether to stay overnight. According to the case, Hong Kong Disneyland also reported to have perfomed badly in their first year due to its size of the theme park. Hong Kong Disneyland are known to be one of the smallest Disney’s theme parks all around the world, that expected to influence the performance in Hong Kong Disneyland. Other than the size of it, they also struggled with the cultural difference in Hong Kong. In their first year of operation, Hong Kong Disneyland has failed to comprehend and familiarize to the culture of the market in Hong Kong. Moreover, Hong Kong market are still not recognizable with all the Disney Characters yet. Consequently, all these factors are proven to have affected the financial performance of Hong Kong Disneyland.

Question 2

        In my opinion, these factors were foreseeable when Disney decide to open in Hong Kong especially the cultural differences. Due to each continent having their own culture, it is true that the Disney’s version or American’s cannot be accepted. The issue in China will only continye despite any help from feng shui masters, as long as the Disney characters are unknown to visitors. Since Disney characters were forbidden for almost 40 years, hence it is common for the mainland China to recognize the Disney Characters only until recent years especially Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse. Thus, it means that the tourists in Hong Kong has narrow knowledge of Disney such as all the traditional stories. As the chinese tourists are not familiar with the Disney stories, so they will have less interest on Hong Kong Disneyland. Besiedes that, the prices of the hotel in EuroDisney would be the most controllable factor. In Paris, the top hotel would cost visitors from at least $340 for a night. Subsequently, visitors would feel more fair and balance of the price being equivalent then they will be more willing to spend the amount of money at EuroDisney.

Question 3

        The Disneyland in Toyko was built with a concept of American styled designed and it was a big success after all. According to studies, Toyko’s Disneyland reported to have millions of visitors and three-quarters of them are repeated visitors. Therefore, it is obviously has created a positive view about the success of EuroDisney. But unluckily, the Disney construction in France has headed to the wrong faith due to lack of assistance from Tokyo Disneyland. With knowing that France has known to be the highest amount of consumers of wine, yet Disney’s mangement still excluded alcohol in the park, it showed that how much Disney’s management are insensitve to the local culture in France. According to the director of Disney University in Paris, Disney also obeyed that women has to wear redder nail polish and men has to groom up. Nevertheless, EuroDisney decided to build speicial shelters for visitors’ pets after they found out that French are actually more preferred to leave their pets in pet hotel during their vacation.