Walt Disney Studios, built off to one side of the nine-year-old Disneyland Paris park at a cost of 610 million euros (US$550-million), is a new zone of rides and attractions that takes its inspiration from movies past and present, and not only those from the Disney catalogue.

The Walt Disney Company, which turned Disneyland Paris around from a loss-making project criticised by some Europeans for being a crass US import into what is now Europe's top entry-charging site, hopes the addition will solidify its foothold on the continent.

The company calculates that the new park will make total entries for both parks jump by nearly a third to 17 million.

The aim is to boost occupancy in the Disney-owned hotels sitting at the entrance and pump up revenues per visitor, whose average stay is expected to be lengthened from 2.5 days to 3.5 days.

Although everything in Walt Disney Studios is, in the words of a Disney employee, "a cliché" of Americana, efforts have been made to accommodate the British, French, Dutch, Germans and Italians who make up the bulk of the visitors.

Thus the shows and park staff offer a polyglot experience and a few nods are made to French inventions that made cinema possible, even if the main attractions are pure US entertainment, like a reconstruction of the space station in the movie "Armageddon".

The new Disney park attractions include:

• CineMagique invites guests into a movie theatre to literally take a trip through the silver screen and experience some of the best moments from 100 years of European and American cinema.
• Studio Tram Tour takes visitors on a tour of the Park's backstage areas, offering them a behind the scenes glimpse at the "secret" world of a cinema studio.
• Armageddon Special Effects offers guests the chance to re-live some of cinema's most spectacular moments and discover some spectacular special effects secrets.
• The fastest roller coaster ever created by Disney: Rock 'n' Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith.
• an edge of the seat live theatre show, the Stunt Show Spectacular. The action takes place in a small village in the south of France, and features an array of daring car, motorbike and Jet Ski stunts.

The timing of the opening, however, is not fortuitous.

The combination of the US recession and the slowdown of European economies, diminished air travel in the wake of the September 11 attacks, and the fact that Disneyland Paris showed only a meagre 1.7 percent increase in entries last year after two years of stagnation all augur against a buoyant first year for the park.

The Euro Disney company that runs both parks said in its 2001 annual financial report released last November that the international volatility "may continue to reduce personal and business travel as well as discretionary consumer spending" and warned it did not know "the extent this situation will impact its operating results for fiscal year 2002."

Shares in Euro Disney, which were floated in 1989 at 10.98 euros and rose to 25.15 euros at their height, are now languishing around one euro.

Even though cost-cutting has been made, security has been discreetly increased around the two Disney parks following warnings that US companies and missions abroad may be targetted by terrorists.

Naturally, Disney's publicity has gone to much effort to paper over these negative associations and keep the new park's opening in the resolutely cheerful and child-friendly style on which the group has built its name.

The company has embarked on an advertising blitz in the Paris Metro system, made TV ads, put links up over the Internet and organised for Europe's major private television networks to do a choreographed 'special'.

With the opening of the Walt Disney Studios Park, Disneyland Resort Paris will feature two theme parks, seven themed hotels, Disney Village, a 27-hole golf course and many other entertainment, shopping and dining experiences. - AFP