One day, when Walt Disney watching his daughter playing at an amusement park, he felt nothing to do and he noticed that other parents had the same reaction. They wish to go home although their children still having fun and playing around. So, he was planning to own a special amusement park which would be a place that parents and children could have fun together. He hope to create a kingdom fulfill with magic, fairy tales, and dreams. Thus, he started to generate everything in his mind such as fairy-tale castle, moon rockets, scenic railway, flying elephant, giant teacups and a lot more. He also traveled to United States and visited America’s most prolific inventors and creators’ building including the Wright Brothers Bicycle Shop, home of the Dictionary magnate Noah Webster, and Thomas Edison’s Workshop. He wanted to add a western village, Main Street, and more inside his magical kingdom while visiting those places. Finally, Walt Disney achieved his fantastic idea successfully as a real magical kingdom and the happiest place was born in the world – Disneyland (Just Disney 2005).

On 17 July, 1955, the first Disneyland was established in Anaheim, Carlifonia which cost $17 million. It consists of eight extravagantly themed lands inside the theme park which are Main Street, U.S.A., Tomorrowland, Fantasyland, Mickey's Toontown, Frontierland, Critter Country, New Orleans Square and Adventureland. During the opening day, it attracted over 28,000 ticket holders to visit the Magic Kingdom. The establisher Walt Disney, standing in the Town Square, observing his hopes and dreams in the form of a fantastic magical kingdom. Walt Disney couldn’t imagine how his magical kingdom and his company thrived and grew into the 21st Century when he came out with the idea of sitting in the amusement park (Just Disney 2005).

Today, there are around 47million peoples visit to Disneyland each year. Beside the first Disneyland that built in 1955, there is other Disneyland in the world now. The second Disneyland located in Florida, opened in 1971 comprise of the famous Walt Disney World Resort, shopping centers, adventure parks and water parks. Moreover, Tokyo Disneyland which opened in 1983 was the first Disneyland Park that opens outside the area of USA. Furthermore, Disneyland Paris opened to public in 1992 and another Hong Kong Disneyland was built in 2005. Other than that, Shanghai Disneyland is still constructing and will be opened in 2014 (Bestwick 2013).

Beside Disneyland and resorts, Walt Disney Company also have other business segments such as media networks, studio entertainment, consumer products and interactive media which make it become one of the most successful business. However, Disneyland parks and resorts can be regarded as the main revenue of the Walt Disney Company. More than a half century, Disneyland has gain high popularity and publicity. According to the financial report of Walt Disney Company, the Disneyland and resort generated huge profit and it is about third of the total revenue. It clearly revealed that the Magic Kingdom has attracted a lot of people, especially in Tokyo Disneyland (Garsia 2013).

Tokyo Disneyland is considered as the most successful Disneyland among the existing Disneyland. Even the park already 30 years old, there was no signs that its magic spell has worn off. Basically, many naysayers stated that the Tokyo theme park would not success from the start because they did not make any changes on the construction of theme park in order to adapt the local culture. They predicted that it is able to attract crowds in the first year but will be tapering off after. According to the publicity director of Oriental Land Company, Disney’s licensee in Japan Katsuhiko Nakamura, they were nervous in the beginning because there were no 100% guarantees that this would succeed. However, the attendance had steadily increased every year as it is totally different from what they predicted. They still come back although they have to wait several hours for the most popular rides. Industry observers stated that the Tokyo Disneyland success to implant visitors with a sense that they are in dreamland — a place where they are willing to return to again and again. There were huge number of people who have bustled through Tokyo Disneyland since 1983 and they helped to make Tokyo the most profitable Disney Park by spending a lot. Also, there was a figure showed the Tokyo Disneyland had lured a record of 27.5 million visitors in 2012 (Nagata 2013).

In contrast, the Disneyland magic seems to lose its power in Europe. The success of Tokyo Disneyland had driven Disney to construct a theme park in one of its traditionally strongest markets, Europe. Besides that, Paris was chosen by the Disney management as the new location due to the French’s government generous incentives and also the impressive date of the regional demographics. Euro-Disney decided to open its door to the public in 12 April, 1992 and they are expecting 11 million visitors and earn over $100 million profit during the first year of operation. However, a group of French farmers blockaded Euro Disney in protest of farm and shut it down on 28 June 1992. Their objective was to stop hundred families from entering the park. One of the leaders of the protesting farmers, Daniel Deswards claimed that Euro-Disney is the symbol of an American culture that has invaded their country. Although the Disney officials declined to comment on how many visitors were kept out of the park, this issue had significantly affected Euro-Disney. However, this was only the starter of Euro-Disney’s nightmare. Since it opened, the park has been plagued by particularly bad weather and lower-than-expected attendance (Tempest 1992).

In October 1994, in order to link closer to the park with the romantic city of Paris, and also disassociate itself with the poor reputation that has become linked with the phrase "Euro Disney", the park’s name was officially changed to “Disneyland Paris” (Solarius 2006). However, for a place that proclaims to be a temple to fairy tales, the magic was not effective to Disneyland Paris. In 2012, Disneyland Paris celebrated its 20th birthday with its crippling debts which was about 1.9 billion euro. This had shown that Disneyland Paris losses every year and owed a lots of debts. And the financial outlook is no fairytale with its bosses saying it will pay them off for at least 12 years (Robinson 2012).

There may be many factors that cause the failure of Disneyland Paris such as bad condition of the weather, wrong marketing strategy, do not understand European culture and others. However, I think that one of the major reasons is the customer service. People have the right to enjoy good service. Nobody is willing to pay for poor service especially Disneyland which sells something wonderful and happiness to children. People visit Disneyland because they regard it as a dreamland that can make them happy and forget about all the worries. Tokyo Disneyland still casts the spell on it today because of its good service and they care about their customers (Nagota 2013). In Tokyo Disneyland, all the staffs were trained to have a good smile, speak different languages, caring, and work effectively. Their job scopes are keeping the venue clean, lead the direction, take photographs as well as interact with children. All of these services leave a good impression to visitors and they are willing to visit again. Also, Tokyo Disneyland spends billions of yen every year to increase new attractions in order to ensure visitors return again. They hope to keep things fresh for people as they will have high expectation to the magical kingdom every time they visit again.

Compare to Tokyo Disneyland, Disneyland Paris received a lot of complaints about their poor services. There are more than 5,000 visitors dissatisfied about the Disneyland Paris and they sign petition to demand for higher standards (Sylt 2013). People complained about the poor food, broken rides, lack of stage shows and the staffs’ attitude. Most of them are disappointed and lost interest to Disneyland Paris. According to one of the staff in Disneyland, Hervé Saumade, the reason that causes this to happen is the new management approach as it had made their working live intolerable in the past few years. Also, there were two Disneyland Paris employees who have committed suicide because they felt fury to their job. In order to cut cost to save the Disneyland Paris, the management reduced the tickets price to attract more people; at the same time, there were many staffs being dismissed. This had caused the workload of staffs increased and their payment is low. To maintain the image of fairy tales kingdom, they were forced to smile although they feel tired. This made the staffs to lost their passion in their work and affects the service quality too (Lichfield 2010).

       

In my opinion, the management team of Disneyland Paris should change their management strategy. They should improve their food quality and generate new attractions to fulfill visitors’ demand. Also, they should be kind and care more about the staffs because they are the one who engage with the customers. Happiness is contagious, if the staffs were satisfied and happy with their jobs, they can spread more happiness to the visitors. Walt Disney hopes to offered excitement, happiness and bring communities together through Disneyland (Beswick 2013). Yet, the huge debts had make Disneyland Paris forget about their original mission. The management team only focuses on reducing the debt without concerning the needs of visitors. Poor food, services and broken rides have cause people started to lost interest on this dreamland. If no more happiness and excitement can found in Disneyland Paris, it is just a beautiful kingdom that no more magic.

References

Beswick, J 2013, Walt Disney Success, The Richest, viewed 6 October 2013,

<http://www.therichest.com/business/walt-disney-success/>

Lichfield, J 2010, The Darkside of Disneyland Paris, The Independent, viewed 5 October 2013,

<http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/the-dark-side-of-disneyland-paris-1964505.html>

Sylt,C 2013, Disneyland Paris feels fury of disenchanted customers as more than 5,000 visitors sign petition demanding higher standards, The Independent, viewed 5 October 2013,

<http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/disneyland-paris-feels-fury-of-disenchanted-customers-as-more-than-5000-visitors-sign-petition-demanding-higher-standards-8815748.html>

Nagata, K 2013, Tokyo Disneyland, now 30, still casts spell, The Japan Time News, viewed 7 October 2013,

<http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/04/13/business/tokyo-disneyland-now-30-still-casts-spell/#.UlVQbjCQa3v>

JustDisney 2005, Disneyland’s History, viewed 7 October 2013, <http://www.justdisney.com/>

Garcis, J 2013, Profit slips at Disney, but parks business continues to grow, Orlando Sentinel, viewed 7 October 2013,

<http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2013-02-05/the-daily-disney/os-disney-first-quarter-earnings-20130205_1_animation-resort-iger-profit-slips>

Solarius 2006, The History of Disneyland Paris, viewed 7 October 2013,

< http://www.solarius.com/dvp/dlp/dlp-history.htm>

Tempest, R 1992, Protesters Block Euro Disneyland : France: Irked by U.S. trade policies, farmers use tractors to keep cars and buses out of the park, Los Angel Times, viewed 7 October 2013,

< http://articles.latimes.com/1992-06-27/news/mn-837_1_euro-disneyland>

Robinson, M 2012, Disneyland saddled with 1.9 BILLION euro debt on 20th anniversary – despite it costing £51 per adult to enter, Mail Online, viewed 7 October 2013,

<http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2128617/Disneyland-struggles-cope-1-9bn-debt-20th-anniversary--despite-costing-51-adult-enter.html>