As the opening of the US$5.5 billion Shanghai Disneyland Park draws near, Walt Disney Co has a challenge: the hold of rival characters from Chinese cartoons such as Boonie Bears (熊出沒) or Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf (喜羊羊與灰太狼), means seven-year-olds like Li Yixuan have less time for Mickey Mouse and Friends.
As the number of competing theme parks in China soars, it will become even harder to win the hearts of Chinese children — and open the wallets of their parents — to fuel long-term traffic after the turnstiles start clicking on Thursday.
“When we get kids now to write down their favorite cartoon character, very few put down Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck,” said Song Lei, Hong Kong-based director at Animation-Comic-Game Group, the organizer of Asia’s biggest annual fair for comics, anime and games.
“Instead, it’s what is being broadcast on television, what they’re seeing in their day-to-day,” he said.
That is not helped by a ban on imported cartoons during the late afternoon “golden hour” peak viewing time for children.
China’s attitude to Disney is ambivalent, reflecting a clash between nationalistic sentiment and the desire for US-style consumption among the growing middle class.
The People’s Liberation Army Daily warned of what it said was “invisible propaganda” in Disney’s animated film Zootopia.
However, Disney CEO Bob Iger last month got a presidential welcome from Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Disney has been granted “special” trademark protection.
Disney is still enjoying a banner year at the box office in China.
Zootopia, Captain America: Civil War, The Jungle Book and Star Wars: the Force Awakens are among the 10 most-watched movies this year, reaping more than US$690 million in ticket sales, according to Box Office Mojo.
Characters from those films are to feature at the Shanghai resort.
DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc’s US$2.4 billion DreamCenter and Six Flags Entertainment Corp’s park slated to open in 2019 are among Disney’s US competitors.
Domestic rivals include Haichang Ocean Park Holdings (海昌海洋公園控股), which plans to open the nation’s biggest marine park next year, and billionaire developer Wang Jianlin’s (王健林) Dalian Wanda Group (萬達集團), which aims to unveil 15 in China by 2020 and five overseas.
Disney will not want to repeat its experience in Hong Kong, where its smaller park lost HK$3.8 billion (US$489.5 million at the current exchange rate) from 2008 to 2011, according to its Hong Kong government partner. The park turned a small profit from 2012, but fell back into the red last year.
For its first foray into the Chinese market, the company has tailored the new park to local tastes.
Out goes “Main Street”, the idealized small US town at the heart of its other parks, and in comes a large garden featuring Disney’s take on the Chinese zodiac.
It hired a retired Chinese People’s Liberation Army general to direct its Tarzan show at the park, and a Chinese-language version of the Lion King musical makes its debut at the opening ceremony.
At 389.7 hectares, the site has two hotels, a 40.5 hectare lake and the biggest and most interactive Disney castle yet.
However, some things have not changed.
Li was among the more than 1 million people to visit the park during its “soft opening,” and he voiced a familiar complaint — waiting time for the rides.
“All the queues were really long and winding. It was like a million turns,” he said.
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