Cultural Challenges Faced by Disney in Asia and Lessons Learned from Hong Kong Disneyland

This report elaborates on identifying the cultural challenges that are posed by Disney’s expansion into Asia as well as the lessons that have been learned by Disney from Hong Kong Disneyland in terms of cultural adaptation. It also illustrates how the cultural variables influence the location choice of Disney theme parks around the world and highlights the reasons behind why the Tokyo Disney Resort has succeeded even though it involves few cross-cultural adaptations.

Running head: GLOBAL MANAGEMENT
Global Management
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1. Introduction
Disney is widely famous as a cartoon company, set up by Walter Disney in the year
1923, in U.S.A (Voigt, Buliga & Michl, 2017). This report shall elaborate on identifying the
cultural challenges that are posed by Disney’s expansion into Asia as well as the lessons that
have been learned by Disney from Hong Kong Disneyland in terms of cultural adaptation.
With the same, it shall illustrate how the cultural variables influence the location choice of
Disney theme parks around the world. Lastly, the essay shall highlight the reasons behind
why the Tokyo Disney Resort has succeeded even though it involves few cross-cultural
adaptations.
2. Discussion
2.1. Cultural challenges that are posed by Disney’s expansion into Asia
With huge population and relatively less number of theme parks, Asia was a
tremendously attractive location for the expansion of Disney. The company has already been
successful in Tokyo, Japan but its park in Hong Kong was less profitable. Therefore, the
company believed that its further expansion into the Asian region is worth it.
Notwithstanding this fact, Disney has faced a good number of cultural challenges in its
expansion in Asia. It is to mention that the cultural challenges that are posed by the expansion
of Disney into the Asian continent are very limited attractions that are based on the local
political regulations, the size of the market, the high prices of tickets and the hot weather
(McCarthy & Cheung, 2018). Moreover, language poses a significant issue for Disney. The
language confusions raised as the Hong Kong Disneyland was officially trilingual-
Mandarian, Cantonese and English. This formed a language barrier as the songs and shows
remained primarily English, not understood by many. With the same, there was climate
issues. There were accommodations for the drizzly climate, there was more rainproof spaces
and coverage and low visibility a d high level of air pollution. Disney tried to serve the local

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favourite food like the shark fin soup and this angered the environmentalists in Asia. Also,
the company did not considered the Chinese New Year in their holiday lists and had to turn
away good number of patrons with the valid tickets. The company seems to be learning from
its Hong Kong experiences. In Hong Kong, the company found in many ways that the
customers always do not behave as expected.
2.2. Cultural variables influence the location choice of Disney theme parks around the
world
The cultural variable influence the choice of location for the theme parks worldwide due to
the fact that they are vital factors for determining whether or not that parks would actually
become successful or not. In order to locate a theme park, Disney had to think and make
research on whether the people in the nation would like this type of theme parks or not and
whether or not they would go for them. The Disney parks greatly promote Disney themes
and characters. Most of the visitors want to see and experience the Magical Kingdom of
Disney Land. In Asian countries, Disney has encouraged the desire and acceptance for all the
things by exposing the population there to its films, products and characters over time (Pan,
Bahja and Cobanoglu 2018). Such strategy facilitate the efforts of Disney to market its theme
parks and at the same time, helps in reducing the requirement of customising its services and
products. Disney adapted several aspects of its Theme parks in order to meet the
requirements and needs of the locals but at the same time, is committed towards standardising
the other elements over different cultures. It is to note that there are several aspects of this
exercise which could be brought back to a single statement and that is of- knowing your
customers. Notwithstanding this facts, while picking a location for the theme parks, the
cultural variable that influence the location can include the following:
 The potential of recruiting staffs and employees for the corporate image and language

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 The potential of providing complete “Disney Experience” within the non-US cultural
standards.
 The willingness of the customers to accept the Western or US flavours.
2.3. The reasons behind why the Tokyo Disney Resort has succeeded even though it
involves few cross-cultural adaptations.
Despite of involving few cross-cultural adaption, Tokyo Disney Resort has succeeded
in its operation. It is to note that the successful operation of the Disneyland in America has
always driven by the managers of the company for extending the business in international
borders and it has been a process of transmission of the American culture in other countries.
In the year 1982, Disney signed an agreement with the Oriental real estate of Japan and that
have allowed the company to operate the Disneyland theme park there (Higgins and Huque,
2015). For adapting a concrete situation in Japan, all the street board and guide in the park
were printed. The success of the company were printed in Japanese and also, the company
has layout the park as per the Japan’s street. For example, the “Disney Castle Mystery Tour”
was dyed using localised colour as per the “Haunted house” in Japan (McCarthy and Cheung
2018). With the same, one of the most significant adjustment was in terms of food. The
Disney theme park has not only opened a restaurant for satisfying the food needs of the local
population, in fact, picnic was also permitted inside the park. This has made the Tokyo
Disney land one of the most successful and attractive parks present in Japan. However, it is to
note that the Japanese culture is highly culture oriented and at the same time, is also divergent
to that of the U.S.A. Still, the company succeeded in operating in Japan due to several
reasons. Firstly, the culture of Japan accepted and recognised the American culture after the
World War II. Most of the Japanese people now like the American culture, which could
easily be represented by the Disney Land in Japan (Beeton and Seaton 2018). Under this
term, the acceptance of the culture of America by the people of Japan is well-reasoned and is

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understandable as well. Secondly, the culture of Japan advocates collectivism. Collective
actions in the Disney Land were simply what the people of Japan pursuit and this has
promoted the consumption and in turn, have attracted many visitors and earn huge profits.
Thirdly, it is to note that Tokyo is the first location where the company has first set up theme
park internationally (Baber and Spickard 2015). This alien culture proved to be a strong
attraction and at the same time, appeals the market in Japan. In this way, Disney successfully
developed cross cultural operation in Tokyo, Japan.
3. Conclusion
From the above analysis it can be concluded that effective cross cultural management
is very important for a business to operate successfully in the international borders. Disney
has faced several cultural issues during its expansion to Asia. Local political regulations, the
size of the market, the high prices of tickets, language barrier and climate issues are some of
the significant cultural challenges that it faced. However, the company successfully formed a
stove where the cultures of several different nations have been fused and assimilated in order
to serve the business operation. In Tokyo, the success of Disney has proved that focusing on
the cultural diversity and the elimination of the cultural conflicts are of great value in such
transnational business.

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References:
Baber, K. and Spickard, J.V., 2015. Crafting Culture:'Tradition', Art, and Music in Disney's'
A Small World'. The Journal of Popular Culture, 48.
Beeton, S., and Seaton, P., 2018. Creating Places and Transferring Culture: American Theme
Parks in Japan. In Film Tourism in Asia (pp. 251-267). Springer, Singapore.
Higgins, C.D. and Huque, A.S., 2015. Public money and Mickey Mouse: Evaluating
performance and accountability in the Hong Kong Disneyland joint venture public–private
partnership. Public Management Review, 17(8), pp.1103-1123.
McCarthy, W. and Cheung, M., 2018. The first and last signs of Main Street: semiosis and
modality in California and Hong Kong Disneylands. Social Semiotics, 28(4), pp.443-471.
Pan, H., Bahja, F. and Cobanoglu, C., 2018. Analysis of US theme park selection and
international implications. Journal of Transnational Management, 23(1), pp.22-38.
Voigt, K.I., Buliga, O. and Michl, K., 2017. Making People Happy: The Case of the Walt
Disney Company. In Business Model Pioneers (pp. 113-126). Springer, Cham.