CASE EURODISNEY

EuroDisney
Disney's first European resort was an exciting project to many when it was originally announced,
but it faced a lot of difficulties after it debuted, with rumours about bankruptcy and closure
permeating its first few years of operation. It eventually rebounded and was rebranded as
Disneyland Paris, although it is struggling with a horrendous debt load even today.
The confidence of Disney to open a new park in Europe was partly based on the number of
Europeans visiting US Disney parks and the fact that they all grew up with Mickey Mouse and
Minnie. In addition, the successful opening of Tokyo Disneyland proves the company the success
of the Disney concept internationally.
However, the EuroDisney was facing many problems. Some of them came because the cost of
the investments multiplies, the income and attendance at the park was not as expected, as they
were based in the US and Japanese park, even the prices and communication add were not right
for Europeans.
The employees were facing a lot of difficulties. In addition, the Human Resources team
misunderstood the labour laws and ethical codes.
It is true that nobody was able to predict the economic crisis that was coming, but the
competition in 1992 was hard in neighbour countries with big events taking place, and even Paris
prove to be its hardest competitor! Also, the greedy strategy in buying all the surrounding land
didn’t benefit the company, since they isolate the business from local support.

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 European visitors were looking for the Disney experience, but
critics were talking about the “Chernobyl experience” and some
French people was complaining about the “Americanisation”
and went into strike in front of the doors of the park.
The park treated Europe as a general mass of people rather
than many individual countries. The executives saying, "We
were told Europeans don’t take breakfast..." seems to show
that the analysis of the European market was very general, and
the US managers were too confident in their success to
research the small details about European cultures.
There were reasons for failure due to marketing and
administration decisions made before and after the launch of
the park. The whole concept of trying to sell an American product to Europe, while trying to
adapt some features of the park to suit a wide variety of cultural tastes doomed the project.
Overconfidence in the formerly foolproof Disney formula meant that in planning the park not
much attention was paid to many important details. In this sense so many errors in the project
planning were the main reasons for failure.

Read the text, watch the video and find information about EuroDisney problems.
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFE8RlKlLCE
Information:https://www.ukessays.com/essays/history/why-did-euro-disney-fail-but-
disneyland-successed-history-essay.php
Answer the following questions:
1. Which internal and external (macro & microenvironment) problems was EuroDisney facing at
the beginning of its operations in Europe? Do you think those environmental problems were
a) predictable and b) avoidable by the headquarters company or by the French management
team?

2. Why was EuroDisney facing all these problems?

3. What aspects of the traditional Disney theme park might prove to be transferable from the
US or Japan to EuroDisney? & Which might prove to be specific to the US, Japan or Europe
and need to be adapted?