Development of Disneyland in Hong Kong and Other International Destinations - Case Study Example

Disneyland Hong Kong Table of Contents Disneyland Hong Kong Table of Contents 2 Executive summary 3 Introduction 3 Disney on international forum 4 Company background 4 Development of Disneyland in other international destinations 5 Hong Kong Disneyland 6 Disneyland in Japan 7 Disneyland in France 8 Conclusion 9 References 10 Executive summary The Disneyland is a fascinating name in the entertainment industry that is a multi-million dollar lavish and prolific theme park. It is present in different countries and is rated as one of the best elements in the global entertainment industry. Since 1955, The Walt Disney Company has set up different theme parks in the USA, France and in the Asian countries. More recently, the company is taking initiatives to start a Disney Theme park in India. All through these years the company has faced various hurdles and has achieved success by way of adjusting with the existing cultural background of the host countries and has made numerous adaptations in its own corporate culture. With the occidental American culture rising in significance and popularity internationally since the later years of 1990s, lately, the theme parks of Disney are gaining huge attraction from various countries of the world, especially from the Asian countries. The very notion of theme park was originally seeded by the genius, Walt Disney, and it still governs the entire entertainment industry (Milman, 2010). This paper looks at these changes that the company has gone through and analyses the performance of the company in the global front. Introduction A fascinating name in the worldwide entertainment industry is the Disneyland. It holds a high position among the world’s most successful theme parks run all over the world. Disneyland attracts fun loving people of every age group, from children to elderly people. It is offers all levels of entertainment, adventurous rides, lip-smacking food and varieties of merchandise (Clave´, 2007). The huge success of this theme park inspires researchers to study the reasons or factors that work beneath this success story to make it such an important and attractive element of the entertainment industry. The Walt Disney Company has mastered the art of socializing with the people and adapting their own company culture to impart training to them such that these people can be assimilated in to this emerging culture. It helps the company to enrich its corporate values. Greater socialization allows the company to evaluate the cultural and traditional aspects and social preferences of a country, which helps the organization to innovate new services that would best suit the taste of the target consumers (Flamholtz and Randle, 2011). Disney on international forum The paper takes a look into the process in which the company has handled the cultural differences experienced by Disney in its course of expansion into the oriental world. Disney is an iconic symbol of entertainment amalgamating the western and the eastern culture through a highly innovative and customer oriented business strategy. The American cultural experience has been recreated in the Asian countries, and has become a controversial as well as hugely profitable model in Japan and Hong Kong. Although the company had not faced great success on opening the first theme park in Europe, in 1992, in the capital city of France, by 2003, Disneyland Paris had gained enough attention and has become a thriving business joint for the company (Aaker and Mcloughlin, 2010; Porter and Prince, 2007). More recently, The Walt Disney Company is taking an initiative to open a new theme park in India. The features of the Indian market are diverse which calls for a detailed study on the successes and hardships faced by the company in its previous ventures. Company background The Disneyland Park is a theme park originally based in America and embodying and representing the American culture. The company had made a humble beginning in 1923 with the Disney brothers, Walter Elias Disney and Roy Disney, starting the company as a small animation studio (Schöne, 2008). For several decades, Walt Disney is a prominent name in the entertainment industry. The company has come a long way from production of cartoon pictures to becoming an admired global brand. The Walt Disney Company has five business subdivisions; “media networks, parks and resorts, studio entertainment, consumer products and interactive media” (The Walt Disney Company, n.d.). Across the American continent and throughout the globe The Walt Disney Company provides high quality of entertainment for people of every age. A large number of tourists visit the Disneyland in California and Florida every year. Walt Disney had created a tale-tell environment of fiction in July 1955 when he had created the Disneyland (The Walt Disney Company, n.d.). The cartoons characters are creations of incredible imagination and serve as ambassadors of the Disney culture. The Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse are the two most well-known fictional characters around the globe and are the representatives of the Disneyland. These characters play a significant role in popularizing the Disney culture in all countries outside America and helps in generating huge number of fans. Presently, The Walt Disney Company is one of the thriving global corporations and it has been successful in passing on the American culture and experience to the other parts of the world. Development of Disneyland in other international destinations General perception relating Disneyland is that it is a theme park founded on the on American culture. Disney is marked on the map of the world as a “landmark of entertainment” (The Walt Disney Company, n.d.). However, with Disney stepping out of America and keeping footsteps in the Europe and Asia, the company is faced with different challenges. The effect of globalization is helping the company to develop and promote its resort and theme park concept “on foreign soil” (Yue, 2009). Although products and services of The Walt Disney Company can be found in almost every country in the world, acceptance of this new idea by the mass of the population in these new countries depends on how lenient the company can be in acculturate with the destination countries while operating in those countries. Disney has tried and adapted itself with the varying cultural flavours of these countries. Differences in social culture, tradition and historical backgrounds are some of the crucial factors that influence the company takes into consideration while adopting the development strategy of Disney theme parks in these countries. While the theme parks in Florida and California are most popular and attract visitors from all over the world, the park established in Paris has not yet matched the fame of Florida or California Disneyland Theme Park (Burkardt, 2007). Apart from the parks in the USA (in California and Florida), there are Disneyland Theme Parks in Tokyo and Hong Kong. Social and economical reasons play a big deal in the success or lack of success of the initiative to venture into these countries. If the company fails to assimilate the historical background and the cultural aspects of these countries into the services offered by them, the populace might feel that the culture of these entertainment parks are foreign to them. Thus, maintaining a flexible corporate culture is of great importance for the firms operating internationally, since customers are the most important factor for any corporate organization. In the entertainment industry, in particular, companies have to give attention to minute details when it comes to achieving maximum customer satisfaction, which indicates that the ability to adapt the corporate culture according to the culture and tradition prevailing in these countries sets a strong initial foothold into these emerging markets. Hong Kong Disneyland Disney possesses a high stake in its Hong Kong resort in financial terms. Since its inception in 2005, it has been a question, whether the company would keep its American characteristics in tact while it establishes the Disney theme park in Hong Kong or would it make a blend of the Chinese and American flavours (Hong Kong Disneyland, n. d.). It dealt with the issue tactfully and made an adaptation of the Feng Shui to incorporate into the theme park for maximizing its prosperity. The company did so by way of showing respect for the local culture and not as a part of fear or superstition (Ungson and Wong, 2008). In the context of food, the company had accepted that the local chefs would prepare the food, although the taste of hamburgers differed a lot from the actual test of the item as available in the USA. The rides might appear docile and less attractive to experienced visitors, if compared with those offered in the Disneyland in the States. Since the mass of China is not well accustomed with the Disney characters beyond the Mickey Mouse and the Minnie Mouse, it is unclear how the people of China would look at the American type Disney themes. The efforts made by Disney to gain a deeper understanding of the local culture have led the country to run successfully in this country (Czinkota, Ronkainen and Moffett, 2009). Disneyland in Japan Disneyland is a popular and well adored name in all of Asia. In Asia, the first venture of Disney was made in Tokyo in the year 1983. The people of Japan are innovative by nature and welcome changes in technology or other arenas readily. The Japanese themselves create products that are delicate and enriched with high technology. They willingly accept foreign inflow of ideas and concepts, due to which expansion on Japanese soil has not been very difficult for the company. The positive point is that Japanese do not reject any opportunity of invention. They accept foreign ideas from the international culture or something that do not belong to them originally. The pioneer of Industrial revolution in the Asian continent is Japan. Hence America found a strong foothold of penetrating the Asian market by way of establishing a successful market in Japan. Disneyland in France Paris is known as the fashion capital of the world. In 1992, the first Disneyland Europe had been started in Paris (Ungson and Wong, 2008). Initially, the Europeans considered this enterprise as a symbol of American capitalism. They did not bear much favourable attitude towards the style and fashion of America. According to general opinion of Europe, the Disneyland was a ‘cultural Chernobyl’ as they compared this cultural shift to the catastrophic nuclear plant disaster of Ukraine (Aaker and Mcloughlin, 2010; Marshall, Kaufman and Johnston, 2005). In order to make the Disneyland concept more acceptable to the people of France, the Walt Disney Company adjusted its culture to suit the European preferences (Tuleja, 2008). It combined the essence of Disney cartoons, particularly the Minnie Mouse, with the fashion element of Paris. This would allow the French to loosen their hardness towards the American culture and accept the theme park as a favourable tourist destination in the country. As the elements of the American entertainment industry got combined with the elements of fashion industry of Paris, the citizens of Paris feel less alienated from their traditional surroundings when they enter this entertainment world. In the beginning, the company had failed to realize the importance of the European practice of supplementing lunch with wine (McPhail, 2011). In 1993, they changed their no-alcohol policy to offer beer and wine within the Disneyland. Contrary to the situation in Hong Kong experienced later on, the park offered the people of France French food, while they were more inclined to American cuisines while in the park. Adaptations to European practices while holding on to the American flavours helped the company to increase its sales and the park’s popularity rose to make it one of “the most visited tourist site in Europe” (Lichfield, 2010). Conclusion Disney has the potential to deliver such experiences that can go far ahead of the pleasure of watching cartoons. It aims at providing its visitors with an experience that is free from the hassle of the world outside the Disneyland (Trahan, 2004; Jackson and West, 2011). The company can make it possible due to its immense brand power and unmatched flexibility in the model of corporate culture that it follows. The parks have created a consumption culture that celebrates the middle-class virtues (R. B. Browne and P. Browne, 2001). This would help the park to find a booming market in the Indian sub-continent. Since India is a developing country, this process of business development would be beneficial for its expansion in India. Besides, India is a country with diverse geographical backgrounds, traditions and religions. Disney utilizes various strategies to make promotions of its services aiming the target groups and to design the theme of the localized theme parks in this country. A significant dissimilarity can be found between the cultures in the East and the West (Tan, 2008; Pilkington, 2002). This is the root cause behind the diversity is the mentality of the tourists visiting the theme parks. Besides, the cultural elements present in these parks are different which might affect the response of the customers. Thus, a strategic move towards attracting the targeted tourists is to blend local country culture with American culture. After successfully establishing Disney theme parks in Hong Kong, Japan and France, Disney should look ahead to the possibility of starting a park in India with positivity. References Aaker, D. A. and Mcloughlin, D., 2010. Strategic market management. West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons. Browne, R. B. and Browne, P., 2001. The guide to United States popular culture. 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