Hong Kong is developing itself as a total family recreation centre -- the Disney park is just the beginning.
Even before Walt Disney Company's 11th theme park in the world, and second in Asia, opened in Hong Kong on September 12, people had started complaining about its size.
At least 20,000 visitors filled its grounds on the opening day, after weeklong trials that drew daily crowds of similar proportions, and the general feeling was that the park was too cramped and should have been bigger.
Disney hadn't anticipated such a response. When they started negotiating for the park with the Hong Kong special administrative region government in 1999, they weren't sure if what was essentially an American icon would go down well in an essentially Chinese cultural environment. For the Hong Kong government, Disney's 57 per cent partner
in the $3.5 billion project, it was a gamble.
Now no one has any doubt. The trials and the opening provide ample evidence that Disneyland Hong Kong, complete with Main Street USA, Adventureland, Tomorrowland, and Fantasyland, just like in Anaheim and Orlando, is going to be a runaway winner and an enduring attraction, not only for local and mainland Chinese but for regional visitors as well.
Chinese vice president Zeng Qinghong flew down to celebrate "the further prosperity and development of Hong Kong". Robert Iger, president of Walt Disney Co., described the Hong Kong theme park as a "giant step for Disney's search for more growth in the huge Chinese market".
The Hong Kong government estimates the first phase of the project alone will generate an economic value of $19 billion in benefits to Hong Kong over a 40-year period.
And, as an indication that the parties had done their homework well, Disney chairman George Mitchell declared that work had already begun on second phase of the Hong Kong project that will eventually add an entire new theme park next to the one just opened.
Together the two phases, he said, would transform the site into "a true multi-day destination resort". After more land is reclaimed from the sea off the Lantau Island, construction could start as early as 2010.
In fact, Disney is so enthusiastic about the China market, by most accounts likely to emerge as the world's topmost tourist destination in the not too distant future, that it's looking seriously at Shanghai as the location of its next theme park and has begun preliminary discussions with the mainland authorities.
Hong Kong tourist
authorities are going gaga over the theme park's instant success. A week before the September 12 opening, the park's two Disney hotels with 1,000 guest rooms were fully booked. Tourist arrivals this year alone are expected to go up by 3.6 million because of the park.