SERVICE (9 marks)

1.What is the main difference between in the time spent eating in Europe and America?

2.What problem does this difference lead to?

3.What solutions did Disney have to find?

Case study

MARNE-LA-VALLEE, France - The food and beverage service at Disneyland Paris today is more efficient and more guest-friendly than it was five years ago when the park opened. That means lower costs, faster service and the only opportunity in a Disney theme park anywhere to drink a glass of wine while looking out over Main Street. At counter-service food facilities, costs came down 20% with a smaller decrease at the park's 12 sit- down restaurants and throughout the resort. When the park first opened, many guests brought food with them and were turned away at the gate. In Europe most parks allow guests to bring food, but Disneyland insisted it could not. Negative headlines throughout Europe resulted. Today the park still has a no-outside-food policy, but it only enforces the rule if there is blatant abuse. Perhaps the biggest and most surprising change is that wine, beer and alcohol can now be purchased in the park's sit-down restaurants, a move Disney officials vowed would never happen. "We listened to our guests and they told us they didn't want to drink Coca-Cola with their steaks or their pasta," said Francis Metais, executive chef for restaurants and catering. "Since starting to serve [alcohol], we have not had one problem with drunkenness." There are four sit-down restaurants inside the park as well as an additional eight in the adjacent Disney Village and hotels. There are 29 counter-service eateries, including the newly opened Buzz Lightyear's Pizza Planet, which features a buffet line and an indoor children's playground. "We're already serving 3,000 to 4,000 meals a day at Pizza Planet," Metais told AB, noting Cafe Hyperion is the busiest counter-service facility, serving nearly 15,000 meals a day. Its main menu offers hamburgers and fries. For sit-down restaurants, The Steakhouse can serve 1,500 meals a day, but the Blue Lagoon restaurant, inside the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, is the most popular, being limited by capacity to 1,100 meals a day. When the park closes at 6 or 8 p.m. during offseason, guests average 1.5 meals per visit, and when it remains open until 11 p.m. during high-season, guests eat two meals plus a snack of some sort, according to Metais.

THE SERVICE

The fact that 90% of Disneyland Paris guests come from Europe also affects the number of meals served, especially at sit-down restaurants. "In America the average person eats lunch in less than 45 minutes at a park. Here they rarely spend less than an hour with their lunches," Metais said. For dinner, Europeans are known to enjoy a meal and drinks. "That's our culture here, and our guests spend at least one and a half to two hours sitting down for dinner." That causes "long queues at our restaurants" each night because there aren't many table turnovers, he notes. There's not much that can be done about it, according to Metais. "It's hard to push them, but if we see someone who obviously wants to be fast, we're there to make sure they are as fast as they want to be." During lunch, "we were able to cut down on time spent by making it quicker for them to eat by offering more foods that are easy to eat --foods that don't need to be cut and can be eaten by hand," he said. Fine-tuning also increased the efficiency of serving lunch. "We have tried several things, and on average we now are 29% faster than we were in the beginning. Serving time now averages about one and a half minutes. Metais increased efficiency by having the kitchen staff prepare and gather the entire food tray, except for the drinks, prior to counter service. "The food used to be put up in bins and the counter person would walk along and gather [each item]. Now all [the server] has to do is get the drink and pick up the tray with everything on it." Another method of speeding things up recently began. "The order-taker is at a station in front of the counter. The person comes up and orders, then walks through the line up to the counter, pays, [and] then goes to the pickup window for the food. Our hope is that the tray will be there ready when guests get to the pickup area. They will perceive that as very fast service."

THE PRICES

The 20% food cost drop didn't affect food quality or service, according to Metais. "The biggest thing we did was not cut costs but offer lower-priced items. Now, instead of two hamburgers priced in the 18 to 20 francs ($3.50 to $4) range, we have five or six, ranging from a basic burger at 9 francs ($1.75) to a gourmet burger at 25 francs ($5). "[Customers] now have more choices and there's a wider range of prices for everyone. Our idea was not to force the guest [anymore] to take the expensive item but to allow them to choose." According to Metais, the biggest changes were adapting all the food items to European tastes. "We like it a little spicy but not so spicy it will burn our mouths."