旅游娱乐业：The EuroDisney Location Decision （转贴）
The EuroDisney Location Decision
When Tokyo Disneyland opened and became an instant success, Disney CEO Michael Eisner authorized a search for a European site. France won out because of its central location, offering easy access to most other European countries, and because the French provided considerable financial bait.
Disney officials were determined to correct errors made in their other park projects. Investors had snapped up the undeveloped land surrounding Disneyland in Anaheim, limiting the park’s expansion. The Orlando Park site had plenty of land, but Disney underestimated the demand for hotels and lost an opportunity to make huge amounts of money on hotel space. In Tokyo, Disney failed to get an equity position in the park and failed to secure royalties for the use of the Disney characters. Disney executives were determined to avoid these fiascoes. To sweeten the deal, French officials sold Disney 4,800 acres-about one-fifth the area of Paris-at early 1970s prices. With cheap land and low property taxes, Disney thought it would make a killing in real estate. Still, the decision to build a park and to locate it near Paris lacked a clear picture of expected results.
EuroDisney revenues fell far below expectations. Park visitors did reach the 11 million projected, but only after steep discounts in the ticket price. Hotel occupancy at 37 percent is far away from the expected 76 percent. By 1994 losses had reached nearly $400 million.
What can be said about the location decision? EuroDisney is within 70 miles of Paris - one of the most popular tourist attractions anywhere - and this location made EuroDisney a one-day stop on the way to somewhere else. Hardly anyone needed or wanted to stay overnight at the park. The superiority of public transportation in France compared to the United States makes it easy for people to make day trips and to avoid pricey hotels. Disney failed to visualize the park as a new experience for Europeans. Instead, they applied old formulas filled with questionable cultural assumptions. Disney officials limited their cost risk, but they failed to adapt to European culture to muster the revenues to cover their costs.
Proponents of the French location ignored warning signs, clearly expressed at the press conference, and used dubious evaluations to justify what they wanted to do. Estimates of park and hotel use were overly optimistic and suppressed the project’s risk. What was the aim? Make money? Have a presence in Europe? Lacking a direction, the project stumbled along without an aim to focus questions at key points in the decision-making effort.
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