Saud Asiri
Multi-National Marketing
2/19/15
EuroDisney Case Disney Corporation could be one of the most successful theme parks in America, and the world. From the case we read it looks like Disney’s theme parks in America and Japan has achieved the success Disney want but the situation is not a success yet for the French Disney theme park. This stumble for Disney goes back to many different reasons that contributed to the failed venture in Europe for Disney. Disney choice France to be the location for their theme park from nearly two-hundred potential sites in Europe. Disney was excited to venture in the European market and thought it going to be as lucrative and easy and similar to the Japanese venture. Unfortunately, it was not, the European market was not as positive and excited as Disney’s management. The park lost a lot of money during its first year opening in France. Moreover, EuroDisney failed to attract the expected numbers they thought they would get. There were many factors that contributed to Euro Disney’s poor performance during its first year of operations and these reasons could be that the park visitors were not happy to spend $280 a day to enjoy the park. Not only did you have to pay a lot of money to enjoy the park but you would have to pay extra for the over-priced hotel rooms near the EuroDisney Park, which many visitors preferred to go to the Florida’s Disney Park because it would be cheaper and the weather is better. The money was not the only deterrent for EuroDisney Park but also the deep rotted animosity between France and America it’s a historic animosity that still exists between the two cultures and that made the idea of having an American conglomerate benefit from being in a French ground. The animosity between the two cultures did not stop here but it continued inside the walls of the EuroDisney Parks in that the French based characters were more favorable to their American counterpart. Moreover, in a country the enjoys wine and alcohol EuroDisney banned alcohol in its park which was a misstep form Disney’s part since French people like to drink more than the Americans. Were these factors foreseeable and controllable by either EuroDisney or Disney? I think most of these factors mentioned in the case were foreseeable and controllable. The EuroDisney management should have focused their research on the cultural aspects of the business. EuroDisney should have not relay on American management who do not really understand the foreign European market. They should have brought in a team of European marketers who understand the market well. EuroDisney should have hired this European group of marketers from the beginning of their venture to France so they would not stumble and lose all that money. Adaptation is a huge part in opening a business in a different culture, people like to be greeted by their own culture and Disney had money and time lost to understand this concept.
What role does ethnocentrism play in the story of EuroDisney’s launch? Ethnocentrism means “evaluation of other cultures according to preconceptions originating in the standards and customs of one's own culture” (oxforddictionaries.com) Therefore, the ethnocentric individual will judge other’s based on their own ethnic group or culture. This was a big problem for EuroDisney management board due to the fact that most of the employees were American, which led to them building the EuroDisney from an American point of view and not from a European one. In result, it made the park become a failure and lose a lot of money.
How do you assess the cross-cultural marketing skills of Disney? We can see clearly from the case that the failure of EuroDisney at the beginning of the EuroDisney venture in France was a huge let down and a failure from the marketing skills aspect. They failed to conduct enough research to the market, they did not understand the European culture and value. They tried to copy the Japanese model and just build an
