Euro Disney Intercultural Management
Learning from the Euro Disney experience
Disney Corporation faced lots of problems when launching Euro Disneyland in Paris. Most of them were caused by poor research of the European market, European people’s traits and habits.
Question 1: What could have been the reason why guests were spending less and leaving sooner?
Disney Corporation expected that people will spend a lot of time and money in Euro Disney Park, however in reality they leave sooner and spend less money than was expected, and it causes big losses. The main reason of it can be explained by Geert Hofstede´s dimension about time-orientation which is very similar to Fons Trompenaar´s time-orientation dimension. As USA is considered to be short-term-oriented country, while European countries are long-term-oriented people spend money differently. Europeans are likely to save money, save it for the future, not to spend big sums of money in short period, but US citizens can often spend a lot easily, and they are not likely to save money.
Additionally, Americans did not count with the importance of culture for the average European citizen. When visiting Paris, thousand years of history surrounds you. To the American, whose country is only a few hundred years old, the perception of spending your holiday does not likely include sightseeing. But when a European visits Paris, they will surely spend part of their holiday to discover one of the most famous and historical cities in Europe. Evidently they will spend less time in Disneyland, there is much else to see.
Question 2: When reading the description of some of the critical aspects, what could have been the major problems and how could they be solved?
From the beginning Disney Corporation applied universalistic approach. As Disney’s community relation manager said: “we knew it would work because it had worked everywhere else”. They wanted that everything in this new Disney Park in Paris was as it is in USA because they already had experience of
Disney Corporation faced lots of problems when launching Euro Disneyland in Paris. Most of them were caused by poor research of the European market, European people’s traits and habits.
Question 1: What could have been the reason why guests were spending less and leaving sooner?
Disney Corporation expected that people will spend a lot of time and money in Euro Disney Park, however in reality they leave sooner and spend less money than was expected, and it causes big losses. The main reason of it can be explained by Geert Hofstede´s dimension about time-orientation which is very similar to Fons Trompenaar´s time-orientation dimension. As USA is considered to be short-term-oriented country, while European countries are long-term-oriented people spend money differently. Europeans are likely to save money, save it for the future, not to spend big sums of money in short period, but US citizens can often spend a lot easily, and they are not likely to save money.
Additionally, Americans did not count with the importance of culture for the average European citizen. When visiting Paris, thousand years of history surrounds you. To the American, whose country is only a few hundred years old, the perception of spending your holiday does not likely include sightseeing. But when a European visits Paris, they will surely spend part of their holiday to discover one of the most famous and historical cities in Europe. Evidently they will spend less time in Disneyland, there is much else to see.
Question 2: When reading the description of some of the critical aspects, what could have been the major problems and how could they be solved?
From the beginning Disney Corporation applied universalistic approach. As Disney’s community relation manager said: “we knew it would work because it had worked everywhere else”. They wanted that everything in this new Disney Park in Paris was as it is in USA because they already had experience of