Disneyland Paris History

Due to the success of the original DisneyLand theme park in Californa, Disney always had plans to build a European version. It was first thought that the park would be situated in Britain, although Britain together with Italy were quickly dropped from the list of potential sites because they both lacked a large expanse of cheap flat land.

Eventually the location in France was selected due to its close proximity to Paris, and also it's positioning within Western Europe. This was a major factor if the park was to be sucessful in attracting the amount of visitors needed to become a profitable propersition.

The proposed location put the park within 4-hours drive for around 68 million people, and 2 hours flight for a further 300 million or so.

Michael Eisner signed the first letter of agreement with the French Government back in 1985, and started to draw up the financial contracts during the following spring, the park slowly started to take shape and construction started on the 2,000 hectare site in early August 1988.

Three years later in 1991 Disney started casting. Disney speak for recruiting. All cast members took on an intensive training program in order to be ready for the opening day. Disneyland Paris first opened to employees, for testing during late March 1992. The formal press preview day was held on April 11th 1992, and the park finally opened to the public on April 12th 1992. Numbers on the opening day were way below expected figures, partly due to protests from the French, who feared their culture would be eroded by the Americans.

By the August of 92 annual attendance figures were far lower than required and a financial crisis beckoned. It wasnt all bad news for Disney themselves as the cheap dollar was persuading more and more people to leave Europe in favour of holidays in Florida at Walt Disney World. New rides began to open but still the visitors stayed away. Everything came to a crunch in March 1994 when Team Disney offered the banks an ultimatum, that Disney would provide sufficient capital investment for the park to continue to operate until the end of the month, but unless the banks agreed to restructure the $1bn debt that the park's construction and operation had run up, the Walt Disney company would close the park, and walk away from the whole European venture, leaving the banks with a bankrupt theme park and a massive expanse of virtually worthless real estate. This worked and the banks were frightened into making a deal.

The Walt Disney Company wrote off $210m in unpaid bills for services, and paid $540m for a 49% stake in the estimated value of the park, as well as restructuring it's own loan arrangements for the $210m worth of rides at the new park.

It was in August of 1994 that the park started to find its feet and all the park's hotels were fully booked during the peak holiday season. Another landmark for the company came in October 1994, when the park's name was officially changed from EuroDisney to "Disneyland Paris".

By the end of March 1995 top Walt Disney executives were predicting that DisneyLand Paris may break-even by the end of 1995. Helped by the opening of Space Mountain on June 1st 1995 in August 1995 Disneyland Paris announced a 22m GBP profit.

Since then Disneyland Paris has gone from strength to strength.