Taking Le Mickey?

It's not a great situation. I agree. Perhaps France equally punishes all other countries and rewards French citizens.

This sounds like a Disney policy. They do the same in California. Lower price for So California residents, higher for everyone else

 

googling 'trouble in paris disney' or just 'paris disneyland news' brings up pages and pages of disney propaganda. it's hard to find anything negative. they must pay a fortune for those positions.

 

florida residents get a good break as well. it's probably negotiated with politicians in return for tax breaks.

 

Or it could simply be that they do it to keep numbers steady by getting the locals to come more.

I've never bought into the Disney thing. But, I'm British. To be honest, I'd expect most British families to head to Florida. More expensive to get there, but cheaper once you're there, better weather as long as you don't go in summer, and the locals speak something resembling English.

Eurodisney will be struggling because Europe is struggling economically and I can't see they can do much to get more visitors. The result is cheapening out and hoping the economies will turn around.
Attendance breakdown reveals where 15 million Disneyland Paris visitors come from • DLRP Today - Disneyland Paris news, rumours, updates

 

A few years ago when the economy was horrible in California Disney stepped up local TV advertising to increase attendance. In fact the local newspaper published the dip in all parks (seaworld, legoland ).

The advertisers are clever running the spots on children programs thus the kids hammered the parents.

Perhaps the French affiliate can increase marketing. As much as you may hate the park one rarely wants to deprive our children of a Disney experience.

Photo is from the 30's in Anaheim. Funny children wearing shirts and ties. The Mickey customs have evolved

 

Perhaps Disney France should have country themes backed by advertising and discounts. One week is English week, another is German, Another Italian. During those special week let's say the English week, tickets are discounted if you have a English drivers license. There will also be English speaking workers throughout the park. That may increase international attendance.

 

i did find one article from 2010 that said disney only owns 40% and the other 60% was public, but held in large blocks like 10% some saudi prince. and they had lost money in 12 different years and many of the stockholders would like to get out and disney was thinking of buying some out. don't know where it's gone since then.

 

May be related

 

When my kids were young one year we got season unlimited passes to Seaworld and another to year to the Zoo. The kids enjoyed it but the park was over run and long lines started to appear. We would just go for a few hours and leave.The cost of the annal pass was not much more than the one day. However if I felt unwelcome I would not invest my money and time.

 

A Saudi Prince owns a part of Disney well he must feel at home in France since greater than 20% of the population are Muslim mostly Berber

 

Where did you get that from?

It's about 7.5%.

 

I went to Disney World in Florida when I was a kid (from Britain) and loved it.

But a lot of my British friends have said they were distinctly unimpressed by Disneyland Paris, especially the ones who'd been to one of the American parks: they said the service was bad, and that it was dirty and badly maintained. It sounds to me like Disney has had trouble imposing its culture on its staff in France.

At the same time, though, lots of my friends have been to the Disneylands in Tokyo and Hong Kong, and said they were really good (both a bit small, but otherwise very similar to the US ones - clean, efficient, well-maintained and fun). The Shanghai one is opening next year or the year after, I think, and I suspect that one will work well too.

So there seems to be a specific problem with the French one. I reckon it is that cultural thing.

 

I would suspect that this might have been a condition imposed by the French government in return for permission to operate. Hong Kong bent over backwards to accommodate Disney; my understanding is that the French did not.

The article is from the Daily Mail. There are British people, and there are dirty, filthy foreigners.

 

ya, when i google, i don't very often get the daily mail, unless i'm checking up on the princess.