Introduction
Disneyland Paris is a holiday and recreational resort located in Marne-la Vallee. Marne-la Vallee is a new small town found in the Eastern parts of Paris, France. The resort comprises two parks i.e. Entertainment & dining and retail districts. It also has seven hotels owned by Disney. Disneyland Paris embarked on its services in the year 1992, becoming the second (after Tokyo Disney Resort) to have been started outside the United States of America territories.
Disneyland Paris is one of the leading destinations preferred by tourists. The proprietor of Disneyland Paris is a French Company called Euro Disney S.C.A; this is a public company with a number of shareholders. The company is no longer called Euro Disney S.C.A. the name was replaced with Disneyland Paris (in the year 1995). The second theme park mostly referred to as the “Walt Disney Studios Park” was launched to the public in (March) 2002. It is documented that this park was the most visited attraction site in entire Europe. The Disneyland Paris resorts have some of its subsidiaries spread in other parts of the world and provide a similarly high standard and quality services (Porter and Prince, 2009).
Visitor Attraction Management
Visitor attraction management is one of the most important parts of tourism management. Tourism is mainly meant to attract visitors who come to tourist sites, resorts, hotels and beaches to enjoy some scenery. Such visitors are the source of revenues to tourist resorts like Disneyland Paris. It is therefore important to come up with a mechanism to ensure that visitors gain confidence with the services from their service providers.
Visitor attraction management is part of tourism marketing (Swarbrooke, 2002). Disneyland Paris has the goal of ensuring an environment in which all the visitors can have fun. Disneyland Paris realizes the economic importance of all those who visit its resorts all over the world. It has therefore come up with management strategies that ensure its visitors get the best and feel comfortable to go back. It has a very efficient means of availing information to its potential and existing visitors. These means include the internet, brochures and it has also established specific centers at which any information can be got by the clients (Crouch, 1999).
One of the most important ways through which Disneyland Paris manages the attractions of its visitors is through ensuring safety for the visitors and the employees. The security team in Disneyland Paris comprises engineers and technicians. There is a safety management system that is implemented in a number of stages. One of the stages is the long-term diagnosis in which all the risks are innate in the activities or infrastructure.
Other stages involve coming up with an action plan meant for making improvements in the safety standards for the visitors; this is done through prevention and protection. Disneyland Paris also conducts performance measurements and monitoring using the audits conducted by its staff and qualified experts. The safety management system within Disneyland Paris emanates from Disneyland Paris’s adaptability and it purpose of continuous improvement. Another way through which Disneyland Paris manages its visitors’ attraction is through the provision of a variety of recreational services within the resort. The visitors do not have to get out of the resorts to go looking for other services.
For instance, Disneyland Paris has hotels that can provide visitors with food and accommodations, it has entertainment and recreation centers. Within the resorts, there are also varieties of other merchandise that can be purchased by the visitors (Crouch, 1999).
It is also important to note that the tourists or visitors to any resort may include individuals with different disabilities. These disabled individuals may need some specialized services to enable them to enjoy any resort they may feel like visiting. Disneyland Paris is having some guidelines for the disabled who are visiting its facilities. The facilities include wheelchairs which can be rented by the disabled at standard fees (Clavé, 2007).
However, in cases where the physically disabled need assistance with the pushing of the wheelchairs, they are advised to be accompanied by somebody who is physically able since the worker of Disneyland Paris is not allowed to offer such services. All the Disneyland Paris facilities are accessible for wheelchair users. The visitors who have hearing problems can have a pre-arranged guided tour done in sign language. To get this type of service, the visitor must make prior arrangements even a month before the visiting day (Brooke, 2008). Service dogs are also available for visitors; the service dogs are fascinating and draw a lot of interest from people especially the children who visit Disneyland Paris.
The dogs are meant to guide visitors safely in certain places within the resort. However, for their own safety, the dogs are not admissible past certain points. Again the blind visitor can obtain information about Disneyland Paris services by use of Braille in both French and English. Disneyland Paris has established comfortable transport services. It has (special) minibusses that offer transport services to those visitors who commute between (Disney) Hotels and (Disney) Parks.
There are special services meant for children. There are baby centers at which nursing parents can change the nappies and feed their children. The resorts also have other services to ensure children’s support during visits to its recreational facilities. Mothers need not worry about handling their children because all children’s accessories are sold within the resort premises (Brooke, 2008).
The qualities of services provided by Disneyland Paris to its visitors have won the trust and confidence of most tourists. This enabled it to maintain a high number of visitors on an annual basis. The number of visitors sometimes becomes so big that some of them are advised to reschedule their visits or wait for some specified times. It sometimes seemed that the facilities at Disneyland Paris are not enough to accommodate all of its visitors during a particular time.
The quality services provided by Disneyland Paris to its visitors has attracted a total of 200 million visitors by 2008. The number has continued to increase since then. Currently, Disneyland Paris is the most visited resort in the European region. This means the resort gets a lot of revenue annually from the visitors who are interested in its services. Due to its good financial performance, Disneyland Paris is able to engage in several community activities.
Disneyland Paris has gotten into partnership with Foundation Hopitaux de Paris so that together they can enhance the daily welfare of children who are hospitalized. This takes place in the 21st version of Pieces Jaunes campaigns. In the process of undertaking such a joint task, Disneyland Paris makes use of volunteers who have agreed to give their time to the services of the children. It also gets into collaboration with the local communities in order to mobilize funds to support the children. Disneyland Paris holds themed camaraderie days every month. During such times the charities with which it partners, other organizations and the local recreational centers are all requested to go and benefit from Disneyland Paris’s resort offering.
The economic recession had a lot of impact on the general tourism industry. There have been reports on revenue slow down. This has also affected Disneyland Paris and its operations. During an economic recession, most people cut down on their expenses, especially by restricting their expenditures to meeting only the basic requirements. During such a period, the numbers of visitors to recreational resorts reduce significantly thereby having some negative effects on most resorts.
However, it is predicted that the tourism and travel industry will soon be recovering during the period of 2010. The future development and competitive position of Disneyland Paris will not be affected much. This is because the world tourism industry is recovering tremendously from the recession. It also means that Disneyland Paris will be able to get back on its normal economic performance and even focus on increasing the number of its visitors (Publishing Oecd Publishing, 2009).
In short, it is a fact that Disneyland Paris depends on the visitors seeking recreational services; when the global performance of the tourism industry recovers from the economic recession, it is definite that with proper operation plans Disneyland Paris is likely to register revenue increase in the future. Disneyland Paris has been expanding over the past years with the establishment of several resorts in other countries. With the high number of revenues it gets from its high number of visitors, it still has the potential to expand in order to offer resort services in more countries than the current ones (Grant, 2005).
Conclusion
As has been discussed, Disneyland Paris is a holiday and recreational resort located in Marne-la Vallee. Marne-la Vallee is a new small town found in the Eastern parts of Paris, France. The resort comprises two parks i.e. Entertainment & dining and retail districts. It also has seven hotels owned by Disney. Disneyland Paris embarked on its services in the year 1992, becoming the second (after Tokyo Disney Resort) to have been started outside the United States of America territories.
Disneyland Paris is one of the leading destinations preferred by tourists. The French firm, Euro Disney S.C.A is the proprietor of Disneyland Paris; this is a public company with a number of shareholders. The company is no longer called Euro Disney S.C.A. the name was changed to Disneyland Paris in the year 1995. Visitor attraction management is part of tourism marketing. Disneyland Paris has the goal of ensuring an environment in which all the visitors can have fun.
Disneyland Paris realizes the economic importance of all those who visit its resorts all over the world. It has therefore come up with management strategies that ensure its visitors get the best and feel comfortable to go back. It has a very efficient means of availing information to its potential and existing visitors. These means include internet, brochures and it has also established specific centers at which any information can be got by the clients. Disneyland Paris has several ways of managing the attraction of its visitors. This has given it a competitive age over its competitors. Disneyland Paris has been ranked the most visited resort in Europe and fourth in the whole world.
Disneyland Paris has services for all types of visitors ranging from children, normal people and all the physically and mentally disabled. The qualities of services provided by Disneyland Paris to its visitors have won the trust and confidence of most tourists. This enabled it to maintain a high number of visitors on an annual basis. The number of visitors sometimes becomes so big that some of them are advised to reschedule their visits or wait for some specified times.
It sometimes seemed that the facilities at Disneyland Paris are not enough to accommodate all of its visitors during a particular time. Due to its good financial performance, Disneyland Paris is able to engage in several community activities. Disneyland Paris has gotten into partnership with Foundation Hopitaux de Paris so that together they can enhance the daily welfare of children who are hospitalized. This takes place in the 12th version of Pieces Jaunes campaigns.
In the process of undertaking such a joint task, Disneyland Paris makes use of volunteers who have agreed to give their time to the services of the children. It also gets into collaboration with the local communities in order to mobilize funds to support the children. Disneyland Paris holds themed camaraderie days every month. Disneyland Paris makes use of volunteers who have agreed to give their time to the services of the children. It also gets into collaboration with the local communities in order to mobilize funds to support the children. Disneyland Paris holds themed camaraderie days every month.
Reference List
Brooke, A. (2008) Frommer’s Paris & Disneyland Resort Paris with Your Family: From Captivating Culture to the Magic of Disneyland. Paris. Frommer’s, p203.
Clavé, A. (2007) The global theme park industry. Wallingford. CABI.
Crouch, D. (1999) Leisure/tourism geographies: Practices and geographical knowledge. New York: Routledge, p. 276.
Grant, R. (2005) Contemporary strategy analysis: Blackwell Businesses, New York: Wiley-Blackwell, p. 430.
Porter, D and Prince, D (2009) Frommer’s Paris 2010: Frommer’s Color Complete Guides. Paris, Frommer’s. P. 402.
Publishing Oecd Publishing (2009) OECD Economic Surveys. Australia. OECD Publishing, pp. 23-34.
Swarbrooke, J. (2002) The development and management of visitor attractions. London: Butterworth-Heinemann, p. 34.