Disneyland Cross Cultural Issues, Ethnocentrism

1. Wonderful
World of
EuroDisney Manvi Varshney
Nehal Parashar
Ritika Lalwani-
Srijan Saxena-
Umang Kejriwal
Vipul Chahal- 1

2. Disney Around
the World
• Disneyland – July 17,1955
• Walt Disney World – Oct 1,
1971
• Tokyo Disneyland – April 15,
1983
• Disneyland Paris – April 12,
1992
• Disney California Adventure –
Feb 8, 2001
• Hong Kong Disneyland –

3. Why Paris, France?
• A two-year financial plan was negotiated with the French Banks
• Paris was the most visited tourist destination
• Chosen over 200 potential locations
• Together, French government's generous incentives and impressive
demographic made Paris ideal location

4. Disneyland
Paris' issues
• French visitors stayed away
from EuroDisney
• They had scorn for
American Disney
characters
• By summer 1994,
EuroDisney had lost more
than $900 million since

5. Improvement
efforts
• Frenchman Philippe Bourguignon took
over EuroDisney as CEO in 1993
• Changes in marketing
• Prices were cut 20% for park
admission and 30% for hotel room
rates
• In October 1994, "EuroDisney" was
changed into "Disneyland Paris", now
is called as " Disneyland Resort Paris"
• In 1996, Disneyland Paris became
France's most visited tourist attraction

6. Expansion
• With the recovery of Disneyland Resort Paris, Disney became
ambitious to expand into further countries
• Disneyland Hong-Kong opened in 2006
• Disney was determined not to make same cultural and
management mistakes in China

7. Disneyland Hong Kong
Disney took some special steps to please the Chinese:
• Disney hired Feng Shui master to manage and ensure the
park's prosperity
• Opening date was set September 12, 2006
• The date was chosen because this day is listed as an
auspicious date for opening a business in the Chinese
Alamac

8. Problems emerge again
• In 2005, Disneyland Resort Paris was on the verge of
bankruptcy
• Visitors felt that the entrance price was still high
• Complaints were mostly about focus on American style rather
than European style
• "Ecological Disaster" was quoted by French President
• In Hong Kong, lack of knowledge about the culture led to
advertisement failure
• Hong-Kong's guests lack knowledge of the American Disney

9. What factors contributed to EuroDisney's poor
performance during its first year of operations? What
factors contributed to Hong Kong's Disney poor
performance during its first year?
EuroDisney
• French visitors stayed away
• French culture already had
their own cartoons
characters
• Underestimated the cost of
construction
• Manager's behaviour and
Hong-Kong Disney
• Park was too small and had
little excitement
• People lacked the
knowledge about the
Disney characters
• Manager's lack of
knowledge in Chinese
culture made them miss the

10. To what degree do you consider that these factors were
(A) foreseeable and (b) controllable by EuroDisney, Hong
Kong Disney, or the parent company, Disney?
These factors were
somewhat foreseeable.
Managers can only control
these factors to a certain
point.

11. What role does ethnocentrism plays in the
story of EuroDisney's launch?
Differences in American and European
Culture
American Strategy can’t be implemented
in Europe
Similarities in one vertical not necessarily
means similarities in other verticals

12. How do you assess the cross-cultural
marketing skills of Disney?
Unawareness of
other countries’
culture
Insensitiveness
towards cultural
differences

13. Why did the success in Tokyo predispose Disney's
management to be too optimistic in its expectations of
success in France? In china?
Main reason for Disney's success was largely due to the fact that
Japanese people were eager to experience American style
theme park within their nation. And, since Disney just copied the
same business model in Tokyo, where they found a lot of
success, they tried to implement the same in both France and
China with EuroDisney and Hong-Kong Disneyland resp. They
failed to overcome cultural differences at both the places.

14. Why do you think that the experience in France didn't
help Disney avoid some of the problems in Hong Kong?
Do you think shanghai park will benefit as it is open now?
• The experience of France did not help avoid some problems in
Hong-Kong as the two cultures are entirely different from one
another.
• Though there were some similarities as both French and
Chinese resisted towards the park
• As now Disney have realised its mistake from Hong-Kong, they
will be benefitted to open in Shanghai as the culture is same in
both the cities. They addressed the issues people faced in
Hong-Kong and now that will benefit them to open a second
theme park in China

15. Now that Disney has opened Hong Kong Disney and begun work on
the Shanghai location, where and when should it go next? Assume
you are a consultant hired to give Disney advice on the issue of
where and when to go next. Pick three locations and select the one
you think will be the best new location for "Disneyland X". Discuss.
They can open new theme parks in
• India
• Mexico
• Germany
Out of three India is best suited. Why?'
• India’s population is over 1.2 billion people
• India’s economy progresses is huge in past decade with majority of
country connected with Internet, Disney has potential to reach inside
the minds of Indian Consumer Base

16. Given your choice of locale X for the newest Disneyland,
what are the operational implications of the history of
EuroDisney and Disney Hong Kong for the new park?
The Park’s advertising and promotion should be the biggest
implication in the new country:
• There are many countries which are still unaware of the concept
and even the characters of Disney cartoons, so major
awareness needs to be done before proceeding in building the
park
• Once the park is built and customers are in the park then the
challenge is to have them satisfied as far as fun and rides size
and keeping the culture and unique features as they did it on
Hong Kong.

17. THANK YOU!