Eurodisney: Bad Decison Making
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[the walt disney co] | Final Project |
Disney has had so many successful ventures; they never thought a theme park would fail. To this day, Euro Disney struggles to keep its doors open, while the American and Asian theme parks continue to thrive.
For years, the Disney “Theme Park Empire” was built upon three crown jewels located in California, Florida, and Japan. Combining the familiar, family-friendly characters and images upon which the Disney reputation was built, with clean and well-operated theme parks helped Disney set new standards for efficient, friendly customer service in the theme park industry, with its parks becoming major international tourist attractions. When Disney expanded its theme park empire across the Atlantic, many expected Disney winning streak would continue.
However, when Euro Disney opened in Paris in 1992, the standard model of Disney theme parks, long considered to be a recipe for guaranteed financial success, soon ran into trouble. This is typical Type C decision making. Tackling the many problems faced by Euro Disney operations has posed many new challenges to Disney, forcing them to reconsider their cookie-cutter standard model for success.
Early hopes for a similar success soured soon after Euro Disney opened, and the experience of opening Euro Disney delivered unexpected surprises to Disney management. The park soon encountered several major problems:
Attendance: Disney’s consulting firm, Arthur D. Little, has projected first year park attendance to range between 11.7 and 17.8 million attendees. To be cautious, Disney used the low range of Little’s figures and predicted eleven million attendees, with seven million of those visitors attending in the six month period between the opening of the park and September 30. While initial hotel bookings at the theme park during the summer looked promising, in the summer months, as the theme park entered its first winter, bookings dropped to twenty percent or
[the walt disney co] | Final Project |
Disney has had so many successful ventures; they never thought a theme park would fail. To this day, Euro Disney struggles to keep its doors open, while the American and Asian theme parks continue to thrive.
For years, the Disney “Theme Park Empire” was built upon three crown jewels located in California, Florida, and Japan. Combining the familiar, family-friendly characters and images upon which the Disney reputation was built, with clean and well-operated theme parks helped Disney set new standards for efficient, friendly customer service in the theme park industry, with its parks becoming major international tourist attractions. When Disney expanded its theme park empire across the Atlantic, many expected Disney winning streak would continue.
However, when Euro Disney opened in Paris in 1992, the standard model of Disney theme parks, long considered to be a recipe for guaranteed financial success, soon ran into trouble. This is typical Type C decision making. Tackling the many problems faced by Euro Disney operations has posed many new challenges to Disney, forcing them to reconsider their cookie-cutter standard model for success.
Early hopes for a similar success soured soon after Euro Disney opened, and the experience of opening Euro Disney delivered unexpected surprises to Disney management. The park soon encountered several major problems:
Attendance: Disney’s consulting firm, Arthur D. Little, has projected first year park attendance to range between 11.7 and 17.8 million attendees. To be cautious, Disney used the low range of Little’s figures and predicted eleven million attendees, with seven million of those visitors attending in the six month period between the opening of the park and September 30. While initial hotel bookings at the theme park during the summer looked promising, in the summer months, as the theme park entered its first winter, bookings dropped to twenty percent or
References: www.oitc.com/Disney/Paris/English/LynEuroDisney.html www.uwec.edu/.../Ivogeler/w188/articles/Disneyland,%20Paris%202004.htm www.independent.co.uk/life-style/lost-in-france-one-damp-mouse-euro-disney-is-very-sick-it-looks-like-time-to-go-home-frank-barrett-reports-1396121.html Harrison, Frank E. (5thEd.). (1999). The Managerial Decision-Making Process. San Francisco, CA: Houghton Mifflin Co.