Euro Disney: The first 100 days

By:

Leandro de Mello

M. D. Hemandra

Devenathan

Athi Shankar

Rajamurthukarpagam

Sivakumar

12/08/09

A Brief History of Euro Disney / Disneyland Paris

August 1988: Construction starts on the 2000 hectare site located 32km to the east of Paris, in a still-rural location near Marne- la-Vallee.

December 1990: Espace Euro Disney (an information centre) opens to the public.

September 1st 1991: Casting Centre opens.

Late March 1992: Euro Disney opens for testing. During those test-weeks, employees (and their families) of the major sponsors such as Philips and Renault were invited to visit.

April 11th 1992: Press preview day. Attendee Michael Sandstrom 12/08/09

A Brief History of Euro Disney / Disneyland Paris

April 12th 1992: Euro Disney opens. Inaugural ceremonies broadcast to entire continent by five national networks. (500,000 visitors did not turn up for the first day of business: in fact, barely 50,000.)

The first phase of development (the theme park, hotel complex and golf course) cost 22 billion French Francs to complete.

May 1992: Up to 3,000 employees have reportedly quit over pay and working conditions.(Attendances are low; 20,000-25,000 visitors, much lower than the predicted 60,000. Only 3 out of 10 visitors are French. Company stock falls to FF 123 ($22.70), down from $30.50 before the opening.) 12/08/09

A Brief History of Euro Disney / Disneyland Paris

August 1992: The park is now expected to draw around 9.6 million visitors this year, as opposed to the 11 million that had originally been projected.

Late 1992: European recession causes property slump and Euro Disney falls into serious financial difficulty.

April 12th 1993: The park's first birthday.

Summer 1993: The new Indiana Jones roller-coaster ride opens.

Early 1994: Euro Disney in crisis.

12/08/09

Visitors

40%

3.5%

18%

8%18%

3.5%

9% Other

12/08/09

A Brief History of Euro Disney / Disneyland Paris

June 1994: A financial rescue package is announced which involves a number of actions: the Disney Company agrees to waive its royalty fees for 5 year; agreement by the banks to support better loan repayment schedules; a new issue of shares.

August 1994: All of the park's hotels are fully booked during the peak holiday season.

October 1994: The park's name is officially changed to "Disneyland Paris". The 'Euro' part of the logo had been reducing in size for some time, and the name gradually transformed from "EURO Disney" to "Euro Disneyland" to "Euro Disneyland Paris" to "Disneyland Paris".

A Brief History of Euro Disney / Disneyland Paris

November 1994: Slightly more encouraging year-end figures are released. The previous year's UKP 650 million loss has been slashed to around 200 million. This is despite a 10% fall in attendance to some 8.8 million visitors.

Winter 1994: Unlike previous years, all of the site hotels remain open for business.

Spring 1995: Disneyland Paris repeats its successful 'Kids go Free' promotional offer.

April 1st 1995: New lower entrance prices come into force, with an average of around 20% reduction on the previous adult prices, slightly less for child passes. 12/08/09

A Brief History of Euro Disney / Disneyland Paris

August 1995: For the first time in its history, Disneyland Paris and the Euro Disney resort complex announce a profit.

15th November 1995: Euro Disney announces it first annual operating profit.

12/08/09

Topical Information

Park Opening Hours Dates Hours

January 10am-6pm

February 10am-6pm

March 10am-6pm (Sats 10am-8pm)

April 10am-6pm (Weekends 10am-8pm)

May 10am-6pm (Weekends 10am-8pm)

May 16-19 10am-8pm 10/28/02

Topical Information

Dates Hours

June 1-21 10am-6pm (Sats 9am-11pm, Suns 10am-8pm)

June 22-30 9am-11pm

July 9am-11pm

August 9am-11pm

September 1-7 9am-11pm

September 8-30 10am-6pm (Sats 10am-8pm)

October 10am-6pm (Sats 10am-8pm)

10/28/02

Topical Information

During busy periods, a 'Magic Morning' scheme operates which provides hotel residents with access to selected areas of the park an hour before the general public.

Park Seasonal Structure and Current Entrance Prices

Seasonal Structure

Low Season Jan 8-Mar 1, Sept 30-mid Dec

High Season Mar 2-Sept 29

12/08/09

Service Triangle

Building customer relationships.

Work for Developing, promoting & delivering

of Standard Services.

Service Triangle

Management

CustomersEmployees

Management - Customers :External Marketing

“Setting the promise”

Effort that the firm engages in to set up its

customer expectation & make promise to

them what they deliver.

External Marketing

Careful analysis of what customers expect

Mission: Making people happy

Approach for achieving mission

Failure in External Marketing

Changed their American inclined advertising to make it more descriptive

Fake promise of promotional priced tickets

No visibility of the Disney characters shown on TV

Showcased a big theme park but distances are difficult to cover

Employee - Customer :Interactive Marketing

“Delivering the promise”

Where the promise is kept or broken is

totally depend on the employee hand.

People are critical at this occasion.

If promise is not delivered customer is

dissatisfied.

Interactive Marketing

DevotedCreative

HardworkingPersistentKindLoyal

Management - Employee :Internal Marketing

“Enabling the promise”.

These are the activities that management

will engages in to aid the providers in their

ability to deliver on the service promises:

recruiting, training ,motivation rewarding ,

providing equipment and technology.

Failure in Internal marketing

Employees were told to smile which didn’t work with the French culture

Many employees quit due to imposition of American culture

Had standard French job classification

Internal Marketing

Clear instructions will be given to the

employees regarding: The role to play, Where

to report, What to wear, How to handle typical

encounters.

Proper training is provided before the

employees face the customers.

New developments will be intimated to the

employees.

Failure in Interactive Marketing

Promise of a multi linguistic staff proved wrong when the ticket counter staff could not speak German

French drivers were not so happy with the limited parking space

Service recovery strategies

Fail-safe the service

Welcome and encourage complaints

 

Act Quickly

Treat customers fairly

Learn from recovery experiences

Learn from lost customers

Thank you

NE Questions?