Investigating the poor financial performance of Disneyland Paris

Abstract

Never judge a book by its cover. Never judge a beautiful theme park resort by its exterior, as well. Those whom have visited Disneyland Paris might have admired the appealing architecture and landscape of the park and not know that financially it is not doing well. This dissertation aims to investigate why Disneyland Paris is not financially successful when the Disney brand is so popular worldwide and its sister parks in the USA and Tokyo are making profits. Despite it being the most visited theme park resort in France and Europe, it had to ask its parent company, The Walt Disney Company, to bail it out at least three times. Recently, in July 2017, The Walt Disney Company, took over Euro Disney S.C.A., the company that manages Disneyland Paris. The research question is answered through a mixed methods approach, which collects both qualitative and quantitative data and analysed together to provide more solid explanations and results. Financial accounts, annual and quarterly reports, press releases, journal articles and relevant independent annual reports on theme parks worldwide supplemented with relevant theories namely, Hofstede’s cultural dimensions and customer centric culture model, are used to help to draw a clearer understanding of the underlying reasons of what caused the financial issues at Disneyland Paris. The Disney brand is so popular and well-established worldwide. How a famous and seemingly attractive theme park is not profitable is intriguing. From the data collected and analysed, it was fairly clear that the root cause of Disneyland Paris’s poor financial performance is due to its poor management and financial strategies. The management should look for internal solutions instead of frequently accepting external investments to fix its financial problems. It is recommended to look at targeting international students studying in Europe as potential customers.