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Hong Kong Disneyland is taking the Walt Disney Co. to a new place: the wonderful world of China. The $3.6 billion park, scheduled to open Sept. 12, is Disney's boldest attempt to make Mickey Mouse as well known as Chairman Mao in the burgeoning Chinese market. With 1.3 billion increasingly wealthy people--290 million of them under 14, Disney's prime audience--China is the Magic Kingdom for a consumer company, and Disney wants to sell them everything from Mickey Mouse toys to animated movies to kids' magazines. "We know we have an addressable market just crying...
With so much on the line, a successful Hong Kong Disneyland is crucial. Executives hope the park will pave the way for the company's DVDs, TV shows, toys and other businesses to thrive in China by acting as a huge roller-coaster-filled advertisement for the Disney brand. "At the highest level, Hong Kong Disneyland is a beachhead for the Walt Disney Co. in China," says Jay Rasulo, president of Disney's theme parks and resorts...
Disney's record with overseas theme parks, however, has been mixed. Tokyo Disneyland has been a smash, with 25 million visitors a year, but Euro Disney, based near Paris, has been a financial sinkhole. Earlier this year, Euro Disney finalized a $2 billion restructuring plan, which included new capital and loan concessions, to rescue the operation. Among the park's problems have been cultural faux pas that have turned off its European audience. When Euro Disney opened, for example, restaurants wouldn't serve wine, an affront even to the French soil it was built...
...park's designers brought in a feng shui master, who rotated the front gate, repositioned cash registers and ordered boulders set in key locations to ensure the park's prosperity. He even chose the park's "auspicious" opening date. New construction was often begun with a traditional good-luck ceremony featuring a carved suckling pig. (Ironically, Disney kicked up trouble not by being too American but by being too Chinese. Disney offered to serve shark-fin soup at banquets, but the local favorite got yanked from the menu in June after environmentalists, who blame consumption of the delicacy for endangering...
Still, most of the park looks as if it were airlifted from the U.S. Imagineers used Walt Disney's original designs for the first Disneyland in Anaheim as a starting point. Many Disney classics are there, including a fairy-tale Sleeping Beauty Castle and a Space Mountain roller coaster. Will this slice of Americana appeal to the Chinese? Disney executives think so. The Chinese "have heard so much about the parks around the world, and they want to experience the same thing," says Don Robinson, managing director of Hong Kong Disneyland. Disney may be catching China at just the right...