Scribd Logo
Upload

Welcome to Scribd!

  • 286 views

    Euro Disney Case Study

    Uploaded by

    Zidan Zaif
    Euro Disney's poor performance in its first year was due to mistaken assumptions about marketing, pricing, park design, and management. It failed to understand cultural differences between the US and France and was seen as "American imperialism." Hong Kong Disney also performed poorly due to underestimating cultural differences from Europe and China. Disney was banned in China for 40 years, so characters were unknown. Both parks could have done more research on local culture and markets to develop better business models. Success in Tokyo misled Disney into thinking its model would transfer directly to other regions without changes.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Euro Disney Case Study

    Uploaded by

    Zidan Zaif
    286 views2 pages
    Euro Disney's poor performance in its first year was due to mistaken assumptions about marketing, pricing, park design, and management. It failed to understand cultural differences between the US and France and was seen as "American imperialism." Hong Kong Disney also performed poorly due to underestimating cultural differences from Europe and China. Disney was banned in China for 40 years, so characters were unknown. Both parks could have done more research on local culture and markets to develop better business models. Success in Tokyo misled Disney into thinking its model would transfer directly to other regions without changes.

    Original Title

    EURO-DISNEY-CASE-STUDY

    Copyright

    © © All Rights Reserved

    Available Formats

    DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Did you find this document useful?

    Is this content inappropriate?

    Euro Disney's poor performance in its first year was due to mistaken assumptions about marketing, pricing, park design, and management. It failed to understand cultural differences between the US and France and was seen as "American imperialism." Hong Kong Disney also performed poorly due to underestimating cultural differences from Europe and China. Disney was banned in China for 40 years, so characters were unknown. Both parks could have done more research on local culture and markets to develop better business models. Success in Tokyo misled Disney into thinking its model would transfer directly to other regions without changes.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    286 views2 pages

    Euro Disney Case Study

    Uploaded by

    Zidan Zaif
    Euro Disney's poor performance in its first year was due to mistaken assumptions about marketing, pricing, park design, and management. It failed to understand cultural differences between the US and France and was seen as "American imperialism." Hong Kong Disney also performed poorly due to underestimating cultural differences from Europe and China. Disney was banned in China for 40 years, so characters were unknown. Both parks could have done more research on local culture and markets to develop better business models. Success in Tokyo misled Disney into thinking its model would transfer directly to other regions without changes.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    of 2

    EURO DISNEY CASE STUDY

    Question 1. What factors contributed to Euro Disney’s poor performance during its first year of
    operation? What factors contributed to Hong Kong Disney’s poor performance during its first year?

    Euro Disney

    The factors that contributed to Euro Disney’s poor performance during its first year of operations is
    mistaken assumptions on marketing and pricing policies, construction design, park management and
    initial financing. For instance, high priced hotels, ban on alcohol, promoting multi-day visits,
    purposeless trams to and from the park was undesirable for the attendees. In addition to these
    abundant factors, failing to understand the contrasting cultural differences is the root cause for the
    downfall of the company. The ideology of projecting Euro Disney as an American icon rose to
    hostility amongst the French people because they interpreted as “American imperialism”. Disney
    land which was recognised as being a magical land where dreams would come true as they showcase
    a separate world was being criticised as a land of glitz which hadn’t paid attention to entertainment
    value rather focussed on its size was brutally unsuccessful. The company must have set up the
    business after framing an adaptable business model through a lot of research about the needs and
    wants of the European visitors since the Disney characters were unrecognised by them. The external
    factors were not favourable to the company such as transatlantic airfare wars, currency movements,
    and recession, Gulf War in 1991 which led to high interest rate, devaluation of several currencies
    and competitions such as Olympics 1992 and World Fair in Seville turned to be the most visited
    places.

    Hong Kong Disney

    The poor performance by the Hong Kong Disneyland was led by certain factors unlike those of Euro
    Disney. By now, the company had a better business model which would attract the domestic market
    so it set its foot during 21 st century by implementing the touch of the Chinese culture by involving
    the Feng Shui specialist, local clothing, language, celebrations and their traditional foods. The
    company estimated to have a lucrative project but it failed to understand the cultural differences
    from Europe to Hong Kong because it lacked a crucial factor besides Disney being small was that the
    idea of Disney and its characters remained unknown to the Chinese as Disney was banned for nearly
    40 years. The Chinese never had an interest or desire for Disney characters as it was unknown to
    them hence it was hard for the visitors to connect with the characters to live in that atmosphere to
    have a remarkable experience. Additionally, the company did not embrace the culture of Chinese in
    promotions, as the commercial projected a family which includes mom, dad and two children
    whereas the Hong Kong government limited families to having only one child which made unrealistic
    and offensive for the Chinese.

    Question 2: To what degree do you consider that these factors were (a) foreseeable and (b)
    controllable by Euro Disney, Hong Kong Disney, or the parent company, Disney?

    In accordance to the case I strongly feel that the factors mentioned above were foreseeable and
    controllable because the major reason for such factors to occur was solely due to poor business
    model developed in Europe and Hong Kong. It required in -depth research about the country and its
    culture to maintain Disney’s reputation providing quality goods and services, breathtaking and
    dreams beyond imagination experience for the attendees to get attached to the place. If the
    company had built strong marketing strategies just like the later CEO of Euro Disney implemented
    separate marketing offices to target the national market by dumping the pan European approach
    and altering the name which brought significant growth to the company. This proves that if the
    company were not overly optimistic based on the success of Tokyo Disneyland and paid attention to
    detail before investing large amounts of money the company could have achieved even better.
    However the external factors were uncontrollable to a certain extent however being in business for
    years the parent company must also analyse the environmental factors that are likely to occur which
    might create havoc, hence the company must be prepared to face the challenges ahead to sustain in
    the long run.

    Question 3: What role does ethnocentrism play in the story of Euro Disney’s launch?

    The term Ethnocentrism plays a significant role in the story of Euro Disney’s launch because the
    company wanted to just transplant its Disney version in various locations without losing the touch of
    Americans and their language, culture, finance, business model and their marketing strategies were
    projected to the Europeans with an ideology that they were doing things the right way. However,
    the Europeans were victims to ethnocentrism too as they disliked the American touch in the Euro
    Disney and they claimed their business model to be wrong if it did not include their culture.
    Throughout the case is it clearly understood that both the U.S and the Europeans were ethnocentric
    and Europeans were narrow minded as they didn’t value the culture of the Americans in that
    company. On the whole, it is the responsibility of the company to not bring ethnocentrism in the
    foreplay if they wanted to be successful in the business as the key objective of any company is to
    satisfy the needs and wants of the consumers. However, in this case, spicing up the Euro Disney with
    a twist of the local culture can also attract other national tourists to explore different experience in
    the magical land.

    Question 4: Why did success in Tokyo predispose Disney management to be too optimistic in their
    expectations of success in France? In China? Discuss.

    The success in Tokyo Disneyland is the root cause for the downfall of Disneyland’s in Europe and
    China. The unexpected tremendous success that hit in Tokyo, Japan Disney land was due to the
    sentiment attachment of Japanese on Disney characters. The Company used a subtle approach as it
    had just transplanted its Disney land to Japan and this made the Japanese visitors capture the
    ultimate US experience just the way it is according to their preferences which is why it turned out to
    be a success from the day it began with million visitors every year. Hence, Disneyland was ingrained
    in the Japanese culture as they brought students during school trips. This made the company
    erroneously interpret that they carried the perfect business model to establish across the globe.
    Therefore the company was overly optimistic which overlooked that cultural aspect influences the
    external factors. Thus a company must be intellectually and strategically strong to be successful.

    You might also like