For tonight's Hivemind Dramatic Reading, as it concerns a Disney Product, you are to read the following as though you were hearing your favorite Disney character reciting it:
Euro Disney
"My biggest fear is that we will be too successful," said an unnamed Disney executive upon the original conception of the Euro Disney theme park. Set on a sprawiling 5,000 acres 20 miles east of Paris, it was planned to include six hotels with 5,200 room. Tokyo Disneyland had been a complete success so it was assumed that this would be as well.
Opened during the midst of a severe recession in April 1992, the visitors were meager. Furthermore, they brought their own lunches and shunned the Disney lodgings. Hotel occupancy was soon less than 50%, and the length of the visits shortened. The policy of serving no alcohol in a country where wine is the customary beverage for lunch and dinner did not help matters. The need to lay off people during slow periods soon ran counter to French labor laws. At the end of the park's first year they had lost almost $ 1 Billion."
Source: Marketing Mistakes and Successes, Eighth Editiion by Robert F. Hartley.