Graded Homework

Fifteen years ago today,on April 12,1992,Euro Disney Resort opened,in Marne-laVallee,France,not far from Paris. The sprawling multibillion-dollar amusement park complex, the
culmination of seven years of planning,design,and construction,covered hundreds of acres. “We
are about to witness an event that will be remembered for many years to com,” said the actor
Don Johnson during the television special that covered the opening. But only 20,000 visitors
showed up,less than a twentieth as many as expected.Euro Disney was an instant flop.Why?
Not only did the crowds not arrive,but local residents protested,and a strike crippled the train
system that led to the park. Two terrorist bombs set off the night before has damaged Euro
Disney’s electrical system and came close to blacking it out. And these would hardly be the
place’s final woes.
When Disney officials,including Michael Eisner, the chief executive, first made plans for a
European version of Disneyland, in the mid-1980s, the idea has to look good on paper.More
Disneyland in California every year. Why not build a park closer to where they lived? The
government was happy to provide massive tax breaks, a transportation infrastructure, and free
land in exchange for the tens of thousands of jobs that would be created in the unemployment
plagued country.
But the French citizenry wasn’t so welcoming. Farmers being forced their ancestral homes held
very public protests, and after the park opened they blocked roads with their tractors. French
intellectuals derided the park as American imperialism,the theater director Ariane Mnouchkime
labeling it a “cultural Chernobyl”- a tag repeated by reporters throughout Europe and around the
globe,along with others like the “tragic kingdom.” The park’s designers were shocked to learn that
they were insulting European cultural; they had gone out their way to Europeanize the
place,emphasizing the European origins of several of their most popular characters,Pinocchio
form Italy, Peter Pan from England,and Cinderella from France among them. They also tried to
play to the longtime European fascination with cowboys and Indians by greatly enlarging the
Frontierland part of Euro Disney.
Shortly after troubled opening, about a thousand employees left en masse. Many of them took
issue with Disney’s dress and appearance codes;others complained of low pay,despite the fact
that it started at 15 percent above France’s minimum wages,and still others disliked being asked
to feign cheerfulness with visitors. “There are several styles of service(or lack of it)in Europe”, a
French journalist observed. “Unbridled enthusiasm is not a marked feature of them.”Disney
executives played down the walkout,saying that growing pains were usual when opening a new
park. Meanwhile the press jumped on stories of employee rudeness,including workers in Disneycharacter dress staring down children and denying them autographs.
Although more than 1.5 million people visited during the first seven weeks of operation, the
numbers were way below expectations and led to staggering losses for Disney,a shortfall of $35
million the first year.The next year the company would report a staggering $960 million
loss,including all the park’s start-up costs. Disney lowered the hotel prices,did heavy
promotion,started serving alcohol for the first time in any Disney park,and even changed the
place’s name several times—it’s now Disneyland Paris—but the financial bloodletting continued.
In 1994,to help stanch the red ink,the company struck a deal with a nearly 25 percent interest
and invest almost $500 million in the park. The following year, the place finally posted its
first,modest profit, $35.3 million.
In the ensuing tears, Disneyland Paris managed, through shrewd financing,aggressive
marketing,and sheer longevity,to carve out a place in the European vacation market.The
company’s determination yielded a steady growth in attendance, and today more than 10 million
people visit each year.That’s far less than Walt Disney World’s 45 million,but Disneyland Paris can
now be called a success.It has been a long,hard road,though,as Michael Eisner admitted when he