Euro Disney or Euro Disaster?

This case concerns the troubles that Euro Disney experienced from the start. Euro Disney claimed that the major cause of its poor financial performance was the European recession and the strong French franc. The timing of the park's opening could not have been more inopportune. If the recession had been the only cause of Euro Disney's problems, the financial restructuring would only need to carry the park forward to better economic times. Only when Europeans began spending freely again would investors learn the answers to some uncomfortable questions: Was the whole idea of Euro Disney misconceived? Were there other fundamental cultural problems that could inhibit the park's success? Would Euro Disney fail to recover even though other European companies did? And, if so, why was the Disney theme-park concept successful in Japan and not in France?

The Walt Disney Company: Mickey Mouse Visits Shanghai

The strategic and tactical problems of managing the operations function in a service environment can be examined through the context of the Walt Disney Company (DIS) opening Shanghai Disneyland. The company and its investors were excited about the Shanghai opening for a good reason: demographics. The resort would be located in the Pudong district of Shanghai, easily the wealthiest of all of China’s districts. A massive 330 million people lived with a three-hour driving radius of the resort site, compared with 19.6 million who lived within the same radius at DIS’s most profitable park, Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. Still, risks remained. Construction complications had delayed the opening almost a year longer than expected and cost overruns and alterations had increased the final price tag of the project. The Chinese economy had also hit a rough patch following the Chinese stock market slump in the summer of 2015. With the world watching, could the classic Disney theme park experience be delivered with the right cultural balance to appeal to its largely Chinese customers? Could DIS get it right?

Globalization and Cultural Imperialism

When Tokyo Disneyland opened in 1983, the Japanese people welcomed this American cultural export with open arms and open wallets. The decade that followed saw continually rising profits and the highest spending-per-guest of any Disney theme park. In 1992, the Walt Disney Company attempted to emulate this success by opening Euro Disney, only to face financial disappointment and cultural backlash. While some basis for these divergent experiences might be found in the inherent differences between Japanese and European (specifically French) culture, this is by no means a full explanation. Instead, this article places more of the onus on organizations to approach globalization in a more responsive, rather than control-oriented, manner.