Business

The Walt Disney Company was found in 1923 by Walter Elias Disney after he had made a short film called Alices Wonderland about a little girl in a cartoon world. He contracted M.J Winkler, a New York Distributor, to help release the series. In 1927, he started releasing all-cartoon series and down the line, he designed a mouse that his wife gave him the name Mickey. Through the years, Disney characters were developed and received too much publicity and worn awards. Walt Disney then thought of developing amusement parks as he had visited several zoos and parks with his children and he felt they lacked something. This led to the development of Disneyland and after years of planning, a new park was constructed in July 17, 1955 in Anaheim California. This investment was a success and plans to expand to other areas were ignited. This saw the establishment of Disneyland in Florida, Paris, China, Japan and other areas. It should be noted that not all these other investments were a success. This paper compares the approaches the company used in the Japanese and French markets, the reasons why the marketing plan used in France was not successful and analysis of the Chief Executive Salvation plan. It also touches on the current trends of Disneyland in Paris, Tokyo and Hong Kong.

Disney investments in other regions had proved to be successful when they made a decision to invest in Paris. As such, they made little consultations and proper groundwork before they launched EuroDisney. The management also believed in themselves as from the time they came on board, they had increased the revenues of the company from 1 billion to 8.5 billion (Cateora and Graham, 2006, pg. 613). They decided to build and operate EuroDisney the American style. The cost of construction of the park was initially estimated at 2.37 billion. Since Disney emphasized on size and glitz, more details were built into EuroDisney. Examples are the centerpiece castle that was made bigger in the Magic Kingdom and expensive trams built to take visitors from the hotels to the park (Cateora and Graham, 2006, pg. 612). These increased the cost of construction by another 340 million. Furthermore, the company did all the designing and construction all by itself instead of partnering with other companies to share the risks. Another mistake made by the company is the failure to incorporate the Frenchs culture in the operation of the park and the services it offered. They banned alcohol in the park known to be part of the French culture they are the worlds biggest consumers of wine and a meal without the un verre de rouge is unthinkable (Cateora and Graham, 2006, pg.613). On top of this was the personal grooming of the cast members, mens facial hair was a taboo and was supposed to be clean-shaven so as to maintain a neat and tidy look. These are what made the park to be make loses as the attendance by the French tourists was poor. They saw the park as a form of Americas imperialism. It even saw the park receive criticism from famous people like the Paris Theatre Director, Ariane Mnouchkine, who described the park as a cultural Chernobyl. Michael Eisner was also pelted with eggs by a communist in protesting about the park. Disneys other failure was the wrongful projection of the income to be reaped from EuroDisney and mistaken assumptions. It expected to attract 11million visitors which would enable the company generate over 100million but this was not the case as by summer 1994 it had lost about 900million. The reason for this was the onset of unforeseen circumstances the transatlantic airfare wars which resulted in cheaper trips to Disney World in Orlando (Cateora and Graham, 2006, pg. 612). Others were the European recession of the late 1980s, Gulf war in 1991, high interest rates and the devaluation of the France currency. The lack of information made EuroDisney to design and built a 350-seat restaurant in some of their hotels which put them in problems as they received as high as 2500 people in the morning for breakfast. Most of the visits lasted for two days unlike the three-day visits they were used to and people spend less than 33 as expected. All these led to the losses that were made by EuroDisney during its first years of operation.    

On the contrary, Disneyland moving to Japan was received with much attention as Japanese had much attachment to Disney characters. It was the first theme park to open outside the United States .They had always wanted to capture what they called the ultimate U.S experience (Cateora and Graham, 2006, pg. 614). Disneyland in the U.S only had to be taken and transplanted in Japan.

The plan used in the marketing of EuroDisney has not been all a success because of a number of reasons. Moving to France was based on its strategic nature in terms of accessibility and the fact that most nationalities prefer visiting the country. More than 310 million people could access the place at the time by flight and another 17 million by car only within two hours. This was supposed to result in a larger number of people visiting the site. However, unforeseen airfare competition saw people opt for Disney World in Orlando which was enjoying a longer favorable weather and good beaches within reach (Cateora and Graham, 2006, pg. 612). The park also received competition from World fair in Seville and the Olympic Games held in Barcelona in 1992(Cateora and Graham, 2006, pg. 613). The two were major attractions of the European tourists. Another cause of the failure was the Disney characters included in the park they were not so attractive to the French. They have their own lovable cartoon characters such as asterix, the helmeted and the pint-sized Gallie warrior and to further impact negatively on the park, they were found in a theme park located near EuroDisney. The advertisements posted by the company also hampered their value. Instead of relaying what they offered in terms of variety of rides and attractions, they laid emphasis on the size of the park and glitz. Another effort by the company to woe more visitors, is the cutting down of its rates by up to 25  in two hotels and the provision of cheaper meals. In fact, it was the cheapest hotel in terms of accommodation rates it ranged from 110 to 380 while the rest top hotels in France cost between 340 and 380, yet the park still received the least number of tourists. This shows that the company didnt offer what the people preferred. The varying customs in terms of visiting the park was also not taken consideration by the company. The August holiday visits were too long than expected they had expected that the visits would change to the American style they were used to short and more frequent, but the offices and factories still remained closed during this period. For EuroDisney to have been successful in its marketing, it ought to have taken all these into consideration.

Philippe Bouguignon took over the leadership of EuroDisney in 1993 as the CEO (Cateora and Graham, 2006, pg. 613) and revised the marketing strategies. He started targeting different markets separately by opening marketing offices in different countries. A variety of indigenous food was also offered and the seating places covered to shelter against the rain. The reception was also customized as the park received people from different cultures. The park was also expanded to include Walt Disney Studios Theme Parks. All these changes forced the company spent more than 1.4 billion. Note that at the time, the company had just recovered and it needed time to stabilize. Most of the benefits that was expected to be realized from the expansion failed as most of these investments had flopped. This saw the company on the verge of bankruptcy again in 2005 (Cateora and Graham, 2006, pg. 614). The France government had to inject 500million to put it back on operation.

Currently, Disneyland Paris is experiencing an increases park attendance and creates up to 43,000 jobs. Though the theme park was a failure at the beginning, nowadays the whole situation is turning around and some level of success has been achieved. Disneyland Tokyo was a success from the beginning and it has remained that way. The introduction of the theme parks further boosted the number of visitors it receives to over 25million a year. Hong Kong Disneyland has not been left back either.