This case explores Disney’s effort to open is third park outside the USA. The case begins by discussing the experiences of Tokyo and Paris. With the expectation of China becoming the world’s largest tourism destination and because the local tourists have a great spending power, Hong Kong Disneyland should have a great success. But the problems that occurred for Disneyland Paris demonstrated that even a global brand like Disney can face big challenges to extend the brand in another culture. Some insensitivities like the high price of tickets, the prohibition of alcoholic beverages in parks can be examples of bad strategies that Disneyland made in the past. Even though Hong Kong Disneyland paid attention to cultural issues in Hong Kong, like building rooms of 888 square meters, sign of good fortune in the Chinese culture or avoiding the 4th floor (associated with bad luck)… These mechanisms seem to be ineffective because there were some customer complaints about the limited size of the park, others said that they were victims of mistreatment. Other complaints were specified from the workers, who said that they work too much and their wages are too low. This created work-related injuries for some employees. Even the executive staff complained about their work conditions. The success in Japan and the bad results in France are related to the way that Disney ideologies are interpreted in both contexts. American culture presented in Disneyland is successful in Japan but not in France. About the Chinese case, Disneyland has more an advantageous position because Chinese customers want to be connected with the global culture and avoid living more time in their culture which was not very fun because of the poverty and the communism.
Hong Kong Disneyland can ask the travel agencies to anticipate this problem by presenting the differences that travelers will live during their journey. This could avoid misunderstandings and problems. Moreover, if there are some organized group trips, the responsible of the group should explain all the differences and the rules that are required.
Hong Kong Disneyland is facing some challenges like the negative publicity that the Lunar New Year Holiday fiasco gave to the company. Hong Kong Disneyland introduced a new discounted ticket, which is valid for one day during a certain amount of months. They did not