Disneyland Paris Needs Wishes
Disneyland Paris is the little secret that they like to keep off in the corner. When you see news releases about big parks opening in China, or expansions being made in America, Paris is never mentioned. It is not because Disney doesn’t want people to know about the park in Paris. The fact remains that Disneyland Paris is a complete and utter failure.
When Disneyland Paris opened they focused on getting in European tourists and failed to concentrate on local Parisian citizens. They did not even bother trying to get Americans across the waters to come through the gates. Instead, they started big tourism campaigns offering fantastic discounts to other European countries, while in turn charging the locals more to get into their parks. The main objective seemed to be for tourists to consider Disneyland Paris as their main destination, similar to what happens in Florida.
There were two problems Disneyland Paris didn’t anticipate. One was that they are not located in Florida. The main problem with being the weather. While Florida is sunny and warm almost year round, Paris is rainy, wet, and cold for half of the year. The rain stops rides, and the cold scares people away. They may have been able to supplement the lack of tourists with local support, but they never seemed to get their marketing campaigns right for the locals versus the foreigners.
The second problem Disneyland did realize is that Paris is not a city that idolizes America. Rather than trying to turn Disneyland into a Parisian park with a Disney theme, they tried to make it an American park in Paris. When walking through the parks and the shopping areas you would not be able to tell you were even in Paris. You would actually feel as if you are walking around a bizarre version of California, with cooler weather.
The Disney Company owns the America parks, but it licenses the name to the International parks or has very little influence. Tokyo Disneyland is run by The Oriental Land Company which has been controlling the parks from day one. They have mastered the art of providing a Disney experience in an Asian world. They have not tried to bring America to Japan, they have integrated the two countries into one experience.
It is unclear who owned majority of Disneyland Paris when it was first created. Disney was working with Euro Disney S.C.A, a publicly traded company, whom was running the park. When the park failed more and more, Disney finally decided to step in. As of December 2014 the Disney Company owned 40% of the park while Euro Disney S.C.A. shareholders own 50%. A Saudi Prince stepped in at some point and bought a 10% stake in the park. It is rumored that Disney is slowly trying to buy back the majority shares of the park, but they have yet to make that happen.
Fiscal year 2014 saw record lows in attendance with a 6 million person drop from 2008. While Disneyland saw 16.7 million visitors to it’s park that year, Paris, which is the Disneyland clone, only saw 14.8 million people. With a steady decline in people coming to the park the future is looking grim. By the time Disney is able to buy the shares back, it might be too late.
