What was the fundamental flaw in the Euro Disney development process?
After the success of American and Japanese Disneylands, there were no doubts about the bright future of the French one. The executives paid much more attention to the size of Euro Disney, rather than to the huge enterprise. They focused people’s attention to the price they invested into Euro Disney, which was approximately 30 times bigger than French inverstors usually fund into similar leasure parks (Hartley, 2010). Executives emphasized that they are paying much more attention to the details and, hence, could create the most comfortable place ever. However, a very important sign happened before Euro Disney was about to open. There were many demonstration against upcoming “Micki Mouse and company” (Hartley, 2010). Popular magazines and newspapers also seemed not support the Euro Disney at all.
Were there other root causes of the failure of the venture?
It should be highlighted that the company’s management dismissed all the critics around upcoming amusement park. They were confident in the plan they had and simply underestimated European society. Disney officials made the park and advertisement way too American and it played and bad joke afterwards. What is more, in the beginning of 90s, Europe faced quite a decent recession after the collapse of USSR and other significant political changes that resulted in economic decline (Yue, 2009). Hence, people were much less eager to use of Disneyland facilities preferring to take food from home and so on. At last, predicted revenues were not met at all (Hartley, 2010).
How would you compare the Euro Disney fiasco with Disney’s domestic and/or other foreign entrepreneurial efforts?
All Disney entrepreneurial efforts are thoroughly planned years ahead and numerous corrections are made before the project start. Yet, Euro Disney had been definitely planned quite well as well as Tokyo one of the one in Florida. Still, Europe appeared to be significantly different from the US and Japan in terms of mentality and ads perception (Yue, 2009). Also, the time for opening Euro Disney appeared to be not the very best one, taking into account the political and economic conditions of the most European countries.
References
Hartley, R. (2010). Management Mistakes and Successes, 10th Edition. John Wiley & Sons.
Yue, W. (2009). The Fretful Euro Disneyland. International Journal Of Marketing Studies, 1(2). Retrieved from http://www.ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/ijms/article/viewFile/4214/6427
