Case # 3 Questions

One of the most important factors that resulted in the Euro Disney’s poor performance was an overestimation of the Mickey’s and American culture popularity. Disney falsely assumed that French people would be willing to spend as much as Japanese people did for a chance to experience American culture. What Disney’s executive did not concern was the French culture itself. French people had their own fairytales characters and if they wanted a piece of American culture, they could travel to Orlando at a less price. Another problem occurred when it came to the new customers habits. Disney should have researched them ahead in order to prevent mistakes such as not serving breakfast or wine with meals. Moreover, Disney profitability was based not only on the French customers but also on the tourists from the neighborhood countries. In this case, Disney should have concerned not only French people preferences but also all other cultures in order to attract people. It made it seem that Euro Disney was only for French consumers. Another set of problems that Disney faced were macro-economic problems such as European recession, which cut off European spending, as well as the Gulf War that reduced travel to and around Europe.

When it comes to Hong-Kong, Disney tried to blend in with the culture as much as possible, as it seems to me, too much. People expected to see something that they had not seen before. Instead they found themselves in the place that did not meet their expectations: it was too small and did not make them feel as they were in a fairytale. Another problem was Chinese lack of knowledge about Disney characters. Disney should have introduced and familiarized them to Chinese people so they would be willing to come see those characters in their homeland “Disney”.

2. Company as big as Disney should have foreseen most of the factors that contributed to the Disney’s poor performance. Macroeconomics factors such as European recession and the Gulf war could have...