Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Live At Daybreak

Euro Disney Celebrates Anniversary, Expands

Aired March 15, 2002 - 06:35   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: One of Europe's tourist attractions is celebrating a birthday and a new addition. Here's a hint -- Mickey and Minnie are featured attractions.

CNN's Jim Bittermann joins us live near Paris with more of the big festivities today.

Good morning.

JIM BITTERMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning Carol. Yes, in fact, this is one of Europe's biggest tourist attractions, Euro Disney outside of Paris, and this weekend it's going to get not only a little older, but a little bigger. The park out here is being added to with another theme park, a studio theme park, Walt Disney Studios.

The current park, Disneyland outside Paris, has been here for about 10 years now. It draws about 12 million visitors a year, but Disney people are hoping that, in fact, that they can add to that with this new Disney Studios park, add about five million more visitors a year, leveraging their investment, but also they say leveraging the tourist's investment. That is to say that someone who comes here for a couple of days may be tempted to spend an extra day, maybe three and a half days. Right now it's running about two and a half days for the -- for the average stay here.

So they've invested about a half a billion dollars in this new Disney Studios park, which includes stunts and animation and all sorts of attractions to keep people interested for those days. They'd like people to stay out here. And as you mentioned, in the lead-in, fact this is the 10th anniversary of Disneyland Paris, a park that some people thought would never make it past its first anniversary. It was very highly criticized in France at the beginning. Some people called it a cultural Chernobyl. In fact, most of that talk has died now and Disneyland is pretty well accepted, not only in France, but across Europe.

Dying down as well has been some of the union problems and labor problems that they had out here at the beginning, although there were some problems all the way up until this week right before this gala opening weekend. There were threats of strikes out here, but management came through with an offer that placated the workers, so all is happy here in the Magic Kingdom this morning -- Carol.

COSTELLO: That's good news for Disney who's been having some problems of late. A question for you, I've always wondered, have they Frenchified (ph) Disney World in any way? It seems so American- looking to me.

BITTERMANN: Well they have, and this new park, in fact, has a lot of European influence because of the European contribution to the cinema. This is all about the movie world, and, of course, there's a lot of backstage Hollywood kind of things here, but in fact there are also some connections to Europe. A lot of the recorded stars that are here are not Hollywood stars, but rather European stars -- Jeremy Irons and people like that who are from Europe, who are well known in Europe, who are hosting various rides and attractions here.

So there has been an effort made to at least give a nod to the European cinema industry as well as the Hollywood, which gets a big play here. One of the principal attractions as you arrive here at Studio One, which is kind of a mock up of Hollywood Boulevard with the Brown Derby Restaurant and all sorts of things. So the fact is yes, they have -- they have a Europeanized it a bit, and I think that keeps people coming -- Carol.

COSTELLO: OK, I'll get you to the rocking roller coaster. I know you're dying to get on it Jim.

BITTERMANN: I already tried it this morning Carol.

COSTELLO: Oh, good for you. Thanks for joining us this morning Jim.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com