Disneyland
Disneyland
Disneyland
H00203823
OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT
1. What markets are the Disney resorts and parks aiming for?
Disney segments their market based on demography and geography. They
have planned and opened their theme parks in the most visited cities in the
world such as Paris, Tokyo and California. This helps the company to aim for
the visiting tourists as well as the large number of locals already in the
region.
2. Was Disney's choice of the Paris site a mistake? Justify your argument.
Disneys choice of the Paris site cannot be considered as a mistake as the site
had a large potential to attract the large number of people already living
around Paris. The site was within 2 hour drive for 17 million people and a 4
hour drive for 68 million people. There was also strong transport links to the
location and Paris already had a large number of people visiting as tourists.
Disneyland Paris did not perform as expected because the company couldnt
adapt to European style of labor and culture. Therefore, the failure of
Disneyland Paris cannot be connected to Disneys choice of the Paris site.
4. What aspects of their park's design did Disney change and not change
(minimum two aspects each) when it constructed Euro Disney?
Although Disney wanted to keep the designs and visions of the company
derived from its founder Walt Disney, they had to change many aspects of
the parks design to accommodate European culture. Two of these aspects
are:
a) To tackle the charges of Disney becoming a vehicle for American
cultural imperialism, Disney designed the park to accommodate the
European heritage of their characters. They even featured characters
from the storylines of the author, Jules Verne. They also changed
background for a few of their characters; making characters like
Cinderella reside in a French inn.
b) Disney conducted a poll in which it was indicated that a large number
of people would respond to a Wild West image of America. They
redesigned few of their rides and even their hotels to accommodate
this theme to satisfy the local guests.
5. List down all main mistakes done by Disney's from the conception of the Paris
resort through to 2006?
Disneyland Paris did not perform as forecasted; there are a large number of
mistakes done by the management and the whole team. The main mistakes
are as follows:
Disney failed to subdue the local peoples fear that Disneys American
culture is harmful for the Europeans. This led to a disappointing
attendance in the opening day of the park.
Disney failed to change its style of work to accommodate European
style of working to accommodate European style of working. This
resulted in a large number of employees leaving the company.
The park had very few rides compared to its other counterparts
worldwide and was heavily criticized.