1. The factors that contributed to Euro Disney’s poor performance during its first year of operation were their lack of knowledge of their target market and the fact that they didn’t take into consideration that the target market was not intended to just focus on one culture. Disney builds and promotes Euro Disney as a piece of America in Europe although Disney failed to adapt to the culture. In the European culture they perceived Euro Disney as being overpriced and the vacation time too short. In America, it is common for the Americans to go on short vacations and stay at the park for three days; However, on the other hand, Europeans like to take month long vacations and stay at the park for a max of one or two days. The major problem was ethnocentrism of the American leaders counterbalanced by French national insecurities. The powerful leadership style of Michael Eisner contributed to these problems. He assumed that people would come from all over Europe as part of the business plan but he failed to comprehend how diverse those consumers would be. At Hong Kong, Disney’s factors of poor performance included the ignorance of the culture again and the fact that they did not introduce the American characters to the Chinese. Disney also did not seem to put much work into Hong Kong Disney because they had only given them sixteen rides when Disneyland in Paris had fifty two rides.
2. Disney as a parent company was probably blind sighted by the success of the Japanese Disneyland. The mistakes made with Euro Disney were at least partly foreseeable and can be accounted on the management team that made the decision for the European park. The hotel pricing is probably the most controllable and foreseeable factor of all. The fact that it costs just as much to stay at a very good hotel in the center of Paris as well as staying in a decent regular hotel, should have been taken into account by the Euro Disney team. The Euro Disney vacation behavior is not