Hong Kong Disneyland will celebrate its birthday on Friday after three difficult years, as its new managing director juggles a grab for Chinese visitors with a battle over how to fund expansion.
The theme park has struggled to attract enough visitors since it opened to great fanfare in 2005, and has faced criticism it failed to understand both the local and Chinese markets.
But a shift to more Chinese-friendly marketing earlier this year was reinforced by the appointment of managing director Andrew Kam (金民豪), whose career has been spent selling another US icon, Coca-Cola, to China.
PHOTO: AFP
“I have yet to go into the details of the plan we will set for next year, but it will be fairly aggressive in terms of [visitor] growth,” Kam told a small group of reporters last week just two days after starting his job.
“We are going to invest more resources in developing these markets ... China is probably the single largest market outside Hong Kong for us — we are looking for expansion there,” he said.
Kam said Disneyland would be employing more staff to market the park in China and build better relationships with travel agents. He is also hoping the Chinese and Hong Kong governments will agree a special visa scheme for visitors from Guangdong Province.
But cooperation with the local government, which owns 57 percent of the park, has been strained.
Legislators have criticized the US$3 billion park for being a bad deal for taxpayers who paid the vast majority of the start-up costs.
And they have balked at further investment when more pressing concerns, such as inflation, are vexing residents.
“Disney has a huge credibility gap ... They got too good an original deal,” said John Ap, a specialist on tourism at Hong Kong’s Polytechnic University.
Kam insists new attractions are necessary, but there is no sign 18 months of funding negotiations will end soon.
“[Both shareholders] have an interest in making this park work and expansion is part of the strategy,” he said.
The biggest question mark remains attendance figures.
The management has repeatedly refused to confirm figures despite the huge public investment, but a recent newspaper report said visitor numbers were expected to hit 5.6 million in the third year.
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