Introduction
The Disneyland Paris Resort is one of the many theme parks of Disney destinations situated in different parts of the world. As the name suggests Disneyland Resort Paris is located at the outcasts of Paris the capital city of France in a place called Marne-la-Vallee. Among the numerous Disneyland Resorts, the Disney Paris resort is attributed to be the most challenging resort.
In the year 2006, the Disneyland Paris had three parks that included; the Disney land Paris, the Disney Studio Park, and the Disney village. The Disney village incorporated restaurants and stores while the Disney Paris hosted the theme park itself and the Disney Studio Park was more centered on movie making concepts (Sehlinger and Testa, 2010).
Factors that influenced the location of Disneyland Paris Resort
Prior to its current location of Marne-la-Vallee, at the outskirts of Paris the Disney Company had considered a number of promising and potential locations across Europe, which could be used to proposed Disney Park resort. The major countries that were under consideration were Germany, Britain, France, Spain, and Italy.
After considerations and discarding of some countries off the list of contenders, the two countries that remained were France and Spain. Spain chances were boosted by its climate, which resembled that of Florida, a state in which one of the Disney resort is located. However, France carried the day after careful consideration of various factors.
The availability of a suitable site that was strategically located on the outskirts of Paris was a crucial factor that was used to determine the Disney resort location.
The strategic location of the proposed site as a factor was boosted by the fact that millions of people could access the proposed Disney resort in a matter of hours regardless of if one is driving or taking a flight. This therefore presented a golden opportunity to the Disney Company of tapping the vast unexploited customer base.
The good infrastructure system that was coming in and going out of the proposed Disney resort site was also another crucial factor that weighed in deciding France to be the Disney resort destination of choice.
France was about to be connected with England by a channel tunnel that was due to be opened in 1994 thus offering an additional infrastructure route that was bound to increase the customer base. In addition to this, the site connection with the rest of Europe could be facilitated by the high-speed TGV network and the French autoroutes network (Sehlinger and Testa, 2010).
Paris, being one of the favorite tourist and vacation destinations in the world, was bound to rhyme with the idea of a Disney resort that related to a vacation destination in one way or the other (Sehlinger and Testa, 2010). The favorable tourist turnover in the region was a motivating factor to its location in Paris.
According to a research carried out, majority of citizens in France embraced the idea of a Disney park in France. In addition to this, both the national and local governments in France had gone a step further by offering financial incentives and even expropriation of land from its citizens all with an aim of facilitating smooth construction process of the Disney Park.
Difficulties faced in the running of Disney Paris
Challenges that faced the Disney Paris were eminent and rocked the park even on its opening date. On the opening date, the smooth opening of the park was park commuter trains’ strikes and to make the matters worse a bomb had exploded on the night to the opening date.
The expected 500,000 people on the opening date were down sized to 50,000 people who attended. The protests from the neighboring villages on the noise arising from the park only added more woes to the just established Disney Paris.
In the early days of its operations, Disney Paris recorded a low number of visitors as opposed to their expectation. The anticipation of more French visitors as compared to the visitors from other countries turned out to be nightmare for the newly constructed Disney Park in France (McGuigan, 2004, p. 69).
The low attendance of guest was attributed to the protests that were conducted by the neighboring villages and the fear possess by the French citizens of losing their culture.
For instance, a glass of wine was vital while eating according to the French visitors but unfortunately, the Disney Paris was an alcohol-free park. In addition to this, the hotel rooms at the park were expensive with prices ranging from 110 380 dollars per night (Anon, 2011).
The initial weeks of operations in the Disney Paris were filled with a huge number of employees’ resignations. Numerous reasons were stated regarding the resignations that were going on but majority of them were directed to the chaotic operations of the park (McGuigan, 2009, p. 45).
The situation was made worse late in the same year when Europe was hit by a recession thereby making property value to drop. This situation forced EuroDisney to experience financial crisis.
Reference List
Anon. 2011. Case Study: The Not-So-Wonderful World of EuroDisney. Web.
McGuigan, J., 2009. Cultural Analysis. London: SAGE Publications Ltd.
McGuigan, J., 2004. Rethinking cultural policy. NY: McGraw-Hill International.
Sehlinger, B. and Testa, L., 2010. Unofficial Guide to Disneyland Paris. London: John Wiley and Sons.