In 1955, Walt Disney opened an amusement park in Anaheim, California, which changed the way that Americans, and the world, viewed such entertainment. Once the domain of carnival hucksters, amusement parks underwent a significant makeover at the hands of the head of the Disney Studios. Through shrewd marketing, including a tie-in to a national television program, Disney successfully marketed Disneyland as a unique entertainment experience and made his theme park world famous. In the mid-1960s, plans were made for a second park, this one located in Florida, which was significant larger than the Anaheim park and which opened in the early 1970s. A third theme park opened in the 1980s in Tokyo, and a fourth in Europe in the early 1990s. The company also operates resorts at each of the theme park sites (with the exception of Tokyo). This research considers Disney's recent announcement that it will be locating a fifth theme park in Hong Kong, and considers that decision both from the company's perspective as well as from the perspective of Hong Kong.
It is important that a company undertake international marketing with the same care and consideration that it uses when introducing a product domestically. This means that the company needs to understand the key features of the target market. Such features include the size of the market and its anticipated rate of growth, the stage of development that the market is in, the stage of the product lifecycle that the company would be entering (along with the saturation levels of the market), buyer characteristics, social and cultural factors that influence purchases, and the physical environment (Cavusgil, Zou & Naidu, 1993, p. 480). These considerations are especially applicable if the company is considering marketing a product that already is being sold in the market, but even if the product or similar products is not being sold already, the company needs to consider whether the market h...