Eurodisney

1. Poor performance during its first year of operation for Euro Disney can be attributed to the fact that they assumed Mickey would be the same hit as he was in Japan. Marketing never planned for the more budget conscious European. They overestimated the number of French visitors who found it cheaper to travel to Disney World in Florida. Also they did not seem to be aware of the French loyalty to their own   cartoon characters and total scorn of the American ones. Other contributing factors marketing may have had no way of knowing was the impact of the European recession and the Gulf War. While they had no control of these things, had they known their planning could have taken on a more conservative plan.
Poor performance during its first year of operation for Hong Kong Disney can be attributed to a narrow focus in planning. While using feng shui in designing the park they did not plan for the visitor’s expectations of bigger and more grandiose, or for their unfamiliarity of the Disney characters. Just because the characters and the themes where they were created and introduced are well known in the U.S. they never thought that they were more or less strangers to the Hong Kong population.
2. As I stated above most of these factors should have been foreseeable except those of economic impacts and world events.
3. Ethnocentrism played a big part in the EuroDisney’s launch along with the factors contributing to poor performance. Disney successfully launched two theme parks in the United States. They were on two difference coastlines and both of there were very successful. This contributed to a false sense of comfort in planning to launch outside of the United States and caused them to overlook the customs and behaviors of the folks in these countries.
4. Disney’s cross-cultural marketing skills have room for improvement. They need to isolate the SRC. While this shows the 3rd step in the framework for analysis it seems to have been overlooked all together....