Monday, January 26, 2009

Disney Is ‘Optimistic’ Over Shanghai Theme Park Negotiations

The negotiations over the planned Disney theme park in Shanghai continues, but Disney seems to be optimistic over it.

An application to build the park was submitted to the relevant government bodies after the Burbank, California-based company had completed a feasibility study, Disney Managing Director for Asia Bill Ernest said today in an interview.

“We are optimistic both parties will have an ongoing dialogue,” said Ernest after the launch of Hong Kong Disneyland’s Lunar New Year celebrations. “Yet today even with the application project report, we don’t have a deal yet, and we don’t have anything agreed to yet. We are still waiting.”


But what is more fascinating in that news report is the indication that Hong Kong Disneyland is recovering and is starting to attract more visitors.

Opened in September 2005, Hong Kong Disneyland had attracted 14.5 million visitors in its first three years, and showed an 8 percent year-on-year gain in the 12 months ended September 2008, said the resort’s managing director, Andrew Kam. Now more than 15 million have visited the park, he said, adding that he expected the growth trend to continue even as the global crisis deepened.


That's good news and hopefully, the learning curve is now less steep than when it first opened. Let's hope that Disney has learned quite a bit from this when they open Shanghai Disneyland.

Zz.

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