The Venture of Euro Disney
Gloria Lau, PBL National Secretary

On April 12, 1992, Euro Disney was opened on time within its $4.4 billion budget. Situated in Marne-la-Vallee, France on a site that is one-fifth the size of Paris and just 20 miles to its west, Euro Disney was much like other Disney theme parks with a wide array of rides, attractions, hotels, restaurants, entertainment facilities, a campground, and even a championship golf course.

Euro Disney is 49 percent owned by Walt Disney Company of the U.S. The company originally project 11 million visitors in the first year of operation for Euro Disney, but reported that attendance for the park’s first seven weeks had only been 1.5 million (it was expected that the majority of visitors have already been attracted to the park before the wet and colder fall and winter seasons, hence, attendance would have slow growth). The break-even point was estimated to be between seven and eight million. While the nearby French residents were projected to account for half of the park’s attendance, they only make up an unexpectedly small portion of the entire attending body. Meanwhile, the Disney restaurants and hotels only registered occupancy rates of just 37 percent. With revenues for its first quarter of operations being only $489 million, Euro Disney had to declare that it would incur a loss for the fiscal year of 1992 (ending in September), causing shares of Euro Disney to drop by 31% since the opening of the park.

Despite the frustrations, Disney managers remained optimistic about the European theme park. Chairman Michael Eisner claimed that attendance at Euro Disney already surpassed that of Disney’s other three theme parks at comparable points in their history, while Euro Disney President Robert Firzpatrick stated that it was impossible to extrapolate meaningfully from the attendance figures at such an early point in park’s operation.

Disney Theme Parks

In the early 1990’s, about 71 percent