DISNEYLAND, PARIS
A TOURISM CASE STUDY
Disneyland Paris began life as Euro Disneyland.
One issue with the park was the weather. People who had visited Disneyland resorts in the USA: in California and Florida, were used to sunshine all the time - Northern France doesn't have the same climate.
In the first fiscal year, the park apparently lost around $900 million. Presumably a lot of this was to do with start up costs.
The Disneyland resort had to be built in an area which was easy to get to, and which had a large resident population as well as a large number of visitors. Paris is a convenient location for many people in Western Europe: not just Parisians.
Marne la Vallee is a new town: one of several built to reduce the pressure on the centre of Paris, and also to provide affordable housing in an area which had seen property prices spiralling, and availability limited.
Similar factors would have been taken into consideration as were involved in the original Walt Disney World.
When Disney was planning this 2nd park, following on from Disneyland, in Anaheim California, there were 4 key prerequisites for the new site:
a) The park must be located in a temperate climate that allows year round operation
b) Enough land must be acquired to insulate the park from the conflicting developments that affected Disneyland - provide a buffer zone (and also allows control over the access to the site, which is designed to build up the excitement)
c) Disney must have absolute autonomy in the development of the area
d) Local government must commit to providing the necessary infrastructure
There is apparently no teachers' guide to the resort, although some companies do offer Disneyland as a destination for Business and Leisure and Tourism and Geography students to learn more about the business of tourism.
I shall develop this page over the next few months. Keep checking back for more.
There will be more on:
IMAGINEERS: A combination of imagination and engineer...
Parades
Areas
Catering
Resorts / Hotels
Characters
Employment
A series of images of the park to give you an impression of the design with fantasy in mind.
OTHER DISNEYLAND WEBSITES
Start off with the OFFICIAL DISNEYLAND WEBSITE of course. This is also an online brochure for the park.
Lots of independent websites, particularly The INDEPENDENT GUIDE, and the DLP GUIDE have some useful content and background. The DLP guide in particular seems to have a lot of up to date content, and is produced by people who are obviously very into their Disneyland experiences...
A bit of searching will throw up a range of sounds, images and even videos.
I would also recommend that you use one of my favourite little websites to search for more photos. It's AIRTIGHT INTERACTIVE's FLICKR POSTCARD BROWSER. Click the link to go there, and search for whatever takes your fancy
One of the more Geographically related rides is of course, "It's a Small World" - this features a range of tableaux of figures from various countries around the world. Spot the stereotype!
Click the thumbnail for a larger image.
References
"Inside Disney: The Incredible Story of Walt Disney World and the Man Behind the Mouse" - Eve Zibart (Wiley, 2002)
Around the park there are a number of wonderful graphic posters. I tried to purchase these from the shops but they apparently aren't available. If they were, I'm sure they would sell in their thousands!
Promotional image © Nouveau Millenaire Editions - © Disney - included to illustrate the quality of the image. if you want me to remove it let me know.
GeographyPages is not associated in any official way with the Walt Disney Company, its subsidiaries, or its affiliates. The official Disney site is available at www.disney.com. All Disney characters are copyright the Walt Disney company, and they own all the rights to the imagery of the park and rides depicted on the site.